


Hate To Love

by roymustang (SpicyReyes)



Category: Naruto
Genre: ...sort of, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Human!Kurama, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2018-12-30 13:02:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyReyes/pseuds/roymustang
Summary: In the ashes of the Kyuubi's destruction, Sarutobi expects to find his student.Instead, he finds two children - one newborn and wailing, the other something far from human.(Or, what would happen if the Kyuubi's chakra was split and gathered into a new being entirely.)





	1. Prologue: From The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [reverse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339486) by [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat). 



> y'all when I said I loved blackkat fics you really should have seen this one coming I mean...come on   
> this one will be a lot more Plot than the other self indulgent reverse-inspired fic though so. fair warning

Yin chakra, in its most basic form, guided creation. 

Used in a human body to govern imagination, it was the force of nature that allowed things to be made.

While Yang chakra was great for giving strength and form to existing things, only Yin could form something entirely new.

Which is why, when Minato split the Kyuubi’s chakra into two halves, he perhaps should have reconsidered which half he sealed away. 

  
  


When Kushina’s barrier around her birth site finally fell, Hiruzen rushed across scorched earth to find the corpses of the new parents lying next to…

A small child.

Holding a kunai.

Aiming it at a  _ baby. _

Hiruzen caught the child’s hand, and watched in horror as tiny, pupil-less red eyes stared up at him through a glare. The child's skin was strangely ashen, and on the top of his head sat the true source of the cold trepidation in Hiruzen’s gut: two tiny, smooth horns, just as could be found on renditions of the Sage of Six Paths. 

“Leave me, worm,” the child - no, this was no child, it was a  _ demon  _ \- hissed. “This whelp has my chakra. I refuse to be trapped, even in part.”

Sarutobi stretched out his own chakra, and barely kept himself from recoiling at the feeling. Though twisted and split, that was definitely the Kyuubi’s chakra. Half lay in the childlike form before him, and the other, in the crying infant he'd been attempting to kill. 

Hiruzen looked to the baby, taking in Minato’s blond hair and Kushina’s light brown skin, and let out a low breath. Minato had sealed the chakra of the nine tailed fox into his son, but not all of it. Somehow, the other half had taken it's own form. 

“You are weakened and outnumbered, Kyuubi,” Sarutobi warned. “Surrender, and we will find a way to reunite your chakra when the boy is old enough.”

The Kyuubi growled at him. “I will not let myself be trapped!” He repeated. “I'd die here before I became a prisoner again.”

“I can't let you harm Minato’s child,” Sarutobi said. “You have already killed his parents.”

For some reason, the Kyuubi turned away at that, staring off at the horizon. He got his explanation when the child-demon looked back, face grim and eyes ablaze with fury. 

“I did nothing,” the Kyuubi said. “I did not break the seal on my own, and my actions against the village were not my choice. I was controlled. A Sharingan user took command of me.”

Sarutobi blinked. “An Uchiha? Or..?”

“If I had to guess at his identity, I'd name him Madara.”

Sarutobi let out a low breath. “That is...a hefty accusation. A lot to take in faith, and my faith is not something you have much to spare of, Kyuubi. Not when half your chakra lays sealed in a boy I never got the chance to hear the name of.”

“Naruto,” the creature murmured. 

“Pardon?”

“His name,” the Kyuubi spat. “Minato wanted to name him after the character in that perverted old bastard’s book. Kushina called him  _ Naruto  _ in her last words.”

Sarutobi looked to the baby - to  _ Naruto _ . “Naruto, then. Uzumaki, since we can't let him become a target.”

The Kyuubi laughed. “And his mother's name will save him?” He waved to the infant. “Barely an hour old, and he's already his father's spitting image. No one is going to be fooled as to what happened here.”

“Then I may need to send him away,” Sarutobi said. “He will not be treated fairly, as a jinchuuriki.” He looked to the Kyuubi again. “But first, to decide what to do with you.”

The Kyuubi held out his tiny, pale,  _ human  _ hands, examining them carefully. “I..have a deal. If you will accept it.” He looked up with the deep red eyes that had startled Hiruzen so. “If not, I'll do things my own way. You'll have to take me down fighting.”

“What deal?” Sarutobi asked, because he doubted he'd have very much of a choice. 

“Let me stay with my chakra,” the demon said. “It would not be hard to change this form, and pass myself off as a normal child. I could be his cover family -  _ if  _ you will allow me my freedom unhindered. I'll even join your ridiculous ninja army, if you wish. I would rather keep siphoning my chakra back off the kid forever than be trapped in those damned chains again.”

“You want to become Naruto’s guardian?” Sarutobi asked, incredulous. “And you expect me to trust you?”

“Put a fucking watch on me, geezer,” the Kyuubi hissed. “I don't care. I'm not going to kill the kid when my chakra would die with him. Until he's old enough and strong enough for me to extract it and reabsorb it, I'll keep him safe.”

Sarutobi knew it was insane, but…

Naruto would never be safe, as the child of two famous shinobi and the container of the nine tailed fox. This was his best shot, and it gave him the unlikely ally of the Kyuubi himself.

“...You'll need a name,” Sarutobi said, admitting defeat without outright stating it. 

The demon-child snorted, and Sarutobi watched him shift, skin turning an even brown as the horns sunk away and his eyes developed tiny pupils in their empty red centers. “I have one. Put it down on whatever papers you have to, but call me by it. I am  _ Kurama,  _ bijuu or human. Don't forget it.”

Sarutobi went to step forward and collect the baby, but Kurama moved first, scooping him up with surprising gentleness.

As though catching his confusion, Kurama bristled, turning to glare at him. “If I'm going to be taking care of this little shit, I need to start now. Just because he stole my chakra doesn't mean I'm gonna let him grow up alone! It's not his fault his ancestors fucked me over!”

Sarutobi blinked, because that was strangely...reasonable. Interesting, coming from a creature everyone claimed was made of pure hate. 

Kurama stuck his nose up, holding Naruto close to him, running his sharp nails lightly through short blonde hair until the infant finally stopped crying. “Well? Where are we going, old man? I'm not going to be introduced to your shinobi at a murder scene.”

Sarutobi sighed, and gestured for Kurama to follow. “I will arrange a cover story for you, and a place to stay. And call me Sarutobi. I have the feeling we’re going to see a lot of each other.”

  
  
  


Kurama’s cover was that he was an Uzumaki relative, sent to join Kushina in Konoha when his father (corrected from Sarutobi’s originally 'mother,’ because Kurama would only ever treat one person with the deference one would a parent) passed. He arrived just in time to find Konoha in war and Kushina bleeding out with a baby, and was named Uzumaki clan head and entrusted with Naruto’s care. 

Not a bad story. Everyone seemed to accept it easily, when Sarutobi told them, and Kurama received a lot of random sympathetic looks. 

Sarutobi, in the meantime, gave Kurama a small apartment and a field promotion to chunnin, citing that he 'fought well’ against the Kyuubi. Kurama had found that particularly funny, but chose to show more of his irritation at being put at a midrank, when he was so far above even S-rank jounin and Kage themselves. 

“It draws less attention to have a twelve year old chunin from a field promotion than a child genius ranked jounin,” he'd defended. “Besides, I have no intentions of sending you on jounin missions, if any at all. You'll be given official leave for two years to care for Naruto, and after that, we’ll see about assignments.”

So, Kurama was officially labeled a clan head to a family of two, a legal guardian, and a ninja of Konoha, all within a day. 

Not bad, for an ancient fox spirit. 

  
  


“What the fuck am I doing?” Kurama muttered, letting himself into the apartment he’d been assigned by the Hokage. He looked down to the baby he cradled in his arms, sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware to the tragedy of his life. As he watched, the boy’s nose twitched, his chubby little face scrunching up as he wiggled it back and forth. 

With the whisker marks marring his cheeks, he looked sort of like a fox cub. 

“Okay, pup,” Kurama said, straightening himself. “If I want to stop spending all my time trapped in humans’ seals, I have to make this body work. Which means I’m taking care of you from now on.”

The baby sneezed.

“Gross,” Kurama told him. “Sneezing on people is rude, brat.”

Naruto didn’t respond, face smoothing back out as he returned to deep sleep.

Kurama tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling of the apartment as the door swung shut behind him.

Without any further comment, he shifted his form, transforming the body again: painting three long black lines down each cheek, marking him a match for the boy in his arms.

Kushina had been a pain in the ass and a jailor like the rest of them, but she hadn’t been the worst. She was gone, now, because of that asshole Uchiha from the woods, but Kurama remained.

If anyone could teach Naruto how to use his chakra, it would be him. Naruto wouldn’t grow up at odds with himself: both halves of Kurama’s chakra would work together, from the inside out, and shape him into a person worthy of a bijuu.


	2. Prologue Part 2: Rise the Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurama gets started on Naruto's childhood, only to realize he doesn't actually know how human kits work.   
> He should have paid more attention to Kushina's pregnancy, but really, he just hated watching her be sappy with Minato. Plus, morning sickness was gross.

Minato had prepared a bag, toward the end of Kushina’s pregnancy, that he kept with him at all times. Packed full of baby supplies, he’d intended to carry it with him to the hospital whenever Kushina went into labor.

When he went to the battlefields, he left it in his office. Which was lucky for Kurama, because that bag turned out to be his only hope for the beginning of Naruto’s life in his care. 

“Okay, pup,” Kurama said, shifting the blanket-wrapped baby to the crook of one arm so he could dig through the bag. “Fair warning, kid, your dad was the biggest scatterbrained idiot, so don’t expect him to have planned ahead well.” He paused, before looking down at the baby. “I feel like I’m not supposed to be holding you like this. Is that a thing? Blink twice for yes.”

The baby in his arm shifted, as though uncomfortable. 

“That works, too,” he said, shifting to cradle Naruto a little more securely and then rest him on the couch, fixing his blanket a little more snugly around him. “The only time I’ve ever interacted with a baby directly was being locked away in one, so I’m mostly bullshitting based on what Kushina spent the past few months stressing about.” He returned to digging through the bag. “I feel like I also probably shouldn’t be swearing so much, but fuck it. You’re gonna be a jinchuuriki and a shinobi. If you can kill a man, you can curse him out first.” He pulled out the essential items as they appeared: diapers, another baby blanket, some newborn sized clothing, a single stuffed toy (a plush tomato, because Minato thought he was  _ funny),  _ and bottles. 

“Oh, fuck,” Kurama sighed at the last items. “You need formula, don’t you?”

Naruto was sleeping again when Kurama looked down at him, and he sighed again, this time more heavily.

He, a beast of pure malice and power of nearly a thousand years, had to go  _ baby shopping.  _

“You best be keeping my chakra warm in there, kid,” Kurama said. “I’m gonna need it by the time I get through with this crap.”

  
  
  


Kurama walked through the streets of the civilian district -  _ fuck  _ if he was going to shop anywhere where regular shinobi would be snooping on him - and scanned the storefronts for one that looked like it would sell what he needed. 

“A baby carrier is first,” Kurama said, speaking softly, half to Naruto and half to himself. Speaking out loud while sealed was odd, because he could only talk as long as his jinchuuriki would listen. Being in a physical body, able to speak freely and hear his own voice in his ears, was a novelty that was quickly becoming grounding in the midst of the insanity of the past few hours of his life. “I need hands, at some point. Especially considering I have to buy about five years worth of shit for you, ‘cause I’m  _ not  _ doing this more than I have to.” 

Civilians were staring at him, in a way they probably thought was subtle. He wasn’t surprised - the Hokage had given him a standard shinobi uniform, from the flak jacket to the weapons pouch. Seeing a random, unknown kid, with whisker scars along his cheeks and the flaming red hair he’d settled on for his form and a shinobi’s headband he’d reluctantly donned (well, tied into a loop hanging from his belt, so it was the minimal amount of commitment to the symbol), was probably starting quite a few rumors. 

“Excuse me, shinobi-san,” a soft voice spoke up next to him, and he turned to see a young woman watching him warily. “I’ve never seen you before. Are you a new genin?”

Kurama bristled. “I’m not a  _ genin,”  _ he spat, watching her flinch back slightly with some satisfaction. “I’m a  _ chunin _ , technically, but right now I’m just a pissed off guy with a kid to take care of that has no supplies, and I can’t find a store that sells them, because I keep having to dodge nosy people.”

She blinked at him, looking shaken. “Uh..um, if you’re looking for kid’s things, there’s no one store for all of them, but the furniture stores should have cribs and the grocery stores would have the rest.”

Kurama watched her for a moment, before reluctantly prompting, “What about a baby carrier?”

She tipped her head. “You mean like a stroller? Or a basket?”

“No,” he shifted Naruto into one arm again, to use his free hand to gesture across his body. “One of the wrap-things. Kushina had one, but it was in her house and that’s torched.” 

“Kushina…?” the woman straightened. “The Hokage’s wife? Oh, is that her baby? Are you getting her more things since her house was destroyed in the attack last night?”

Kurama grit his teeth, before turning away. “I’m gonna just go look.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly, grabbing at his arm to stop him, which immediately set his teeth on edge. “Wraps like that would probably be at a clothing store, if I had to guess. I’m sorry for prying, I was just curious. No one knows who you are.”

“So you said,” he snapped back, before letting out a long breath. If he was going to be stuck in the village, he may as well let them know he’d be around, so they didn’t start coming up with some wild theories about who he was - even if ‘human form of a bijuu’ wasn’t the first place anyone would jump to. “I’m Kurama Uzumaki,” he said, the last name spat harshly with what he hoped she’d interpret as bitterness toward the loss of his clan rather than the heavy spite for the people who had served as his jailors for so long. “Kushina and Minato died in the attack. I’m taking Naruto in instead.” 

The woman gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out a card that she handed over to him. “Here, this is my family’s store. If you need help with anything, let us know. We have a little girl of our own, just a couple months old now.” 

Kurama flipped the card around, looking to it with furrowed brows.  _ Yamanaka Flowers,  _ it declared, and he twitched at the implication.

This woman was a Yamanaka. One of the major shinobi clans of Konoha. If she had a new daughter, that would make her Inoichi’s wife. 

Inoichi, the head of T&I. The man with insane power over the human mind.

The sort of person Kurama did not want to be  _ anywhere near.  _

“Oh, yeah, I suppose I should introduce myself,” she said, smiling bright. “I’m Hiroko Yamanaka. My husband is Inoichi, and my daughter is Ino.” 

Hiroko meant  _ generous.  _ Kurama supposed that was fitting enough. Still, the fact that this woman he’d pegged as a random civilian was actually a shinobi, just out of uniform, was unsettling.

He’d need to learn to read people better. They all looked fragile to him, and that was dangerous. He needed to keep his guard up at all times, here. 

“Thank you, Hiroko,” Kurama said, speaking carefully, choosing words that tasted bitter in his mouth but wouldn’t offend the wife of a man who could make his life pure hell if he wanted. “I’m going to go shop, now. If nothing else, the p-  _ kid _ is gonna be hungry soon.”

_ Way to go, Kurama. You almost called the baby a pup in front of a human. Real clever.  _

Hiroko nodded to him and said a farewell, heading on her way, and the Kyuubi once again returned to his quest for baby things. 

Whatever he did, he needed to make sure his siblings never found out about this. The nine-tailed demon fox, baby shopping. He’d never hear the end of it.

  
  


Baby shopping ended up being a slightly more complicated affair than he anticipated. 

His original goal of a baby carrier ended up with him getting two: one with a sideways sling for laying a newborn down in, and another that the baby would sit up in facing outward when he was old enough to support his own head.

From there, he kept running into hangups.

Putting a baby in a cage was an odd practice, and it creeped Kurama out, so he bypassed cribs in favor of a bassinet. He’d worry about containment for a bigger kid when he  _ had  _ one. For now, Naruto was barely bigger than his hand. Once he got that, though, he realized he didn’t have enough hands to carry it back to the apartment, even with Naruto in the sling. 

Luckily, the civilian shop owner took a little extra ryo from the starter money the Hokage had given him and agreed to deliver it.

He’d seemed happy about it, which made Kurama suspicious. He really needed to learn more about the economy of the city, because he had no way of knowing if he was being ripped off. Luckily for him, he was named the Uzumaki clan head for the time being, which meant he had their fortune at his disposal.

It wouldn’t last forever, but it would get him going until he figured out how the hell money actually worked. 

Buying baby clothes ended up being where he lost his mind a little, because he had no idea what kids were meant to wear. Obviously, a newborn didn’t need tactical clothing, so the obvious thing would be to just buy a handful of plain infant bodysuits and stick with that until the kid turned into an actual human. 

The shopkeeper was eyeing him the whole time he was in the shelves, though, and eventually came over to speak to him, so he had a feeling he wasn’t getting off that easy.

“Hello there,” she greeted. “Is this your little brother or sister?”

Kurama turned a blank, unimpressed stare at her, wondering how exactly he should claim Naruto.

“I’m his cousin,” he decided on. “But his mom is dead and he has nothing and nobody, so I’m getting him shit. Preferably quickly, because I’m  _ pretty  _ sure he’s about to wake up and scream at me for formula I don’t have.” 

The woman looked stunned for a split second, before recovering. “I’m so sorry. I can help you find some clothes, if you’d like? Newborn’s clothes are over this way.”

She gestured to a shelf, and Kurama headed over to it, looking over all the tiny little outfits displayed on it. 

One shirt had a fox on it, and his interest was immediately peaked. He scooped it up, looking at the little cartoon creature.

Only one tail, which was disappointing, and the shopkeeper was looking at him like the choice was slightly questionable. Which wasn’t surprising, really, because a giant fox spirit had literally destroyed half the village the night before and here he was marvelling at a cute rendition of the same animal on a baby shirt.

“Oh, that’s one of the girl’s shirts,” she said after a moment, running a finger along the pink cloth of the background. “But it’s very cute, I’ll admit.”

Kurama blinked, taking in the fact that she’d dismissed it based on the baby’s gender and the item’s color.

…It was a  _ baby.  _ What the fuck did it care? Naruto wouldn’t even be able to see it for a while, and by the time he learned what colors were - let alone  _ genders -  _ he’d have forgotten the first couple years of his life completely. 

Ugh, it was a human society thing, wasn’t it? He was going to have to learn so  _ much  _ for this bullshit. His chakra better be safe in the brat. 

He ended up just buying whatever the woman suggested, not even really looking at it, and then quickly rushing to the grocery store to buy baby formula. 

Which, of course, he quickly realized wasn’t  _ all  _ he needed, because he’d actually need food for himself while human. Gross. 

By the time he got back to the apartment, it was nearly noon, and he  _ definitely  _ needed to feed the kid. Babies were supposed to eat like...every other hour, right?

...He needed a book or something. Damn shame Kushina’s bookshelf went up with the rest of her shit. 

He put the baby back down on the couch, and prepared a bottle according to the instructions on the box, before scooping Naruto up and starting to feed him as best he could.

Turns out, feeding the brat was easy - he latched onto the bottle and drained it with a speed that left Kurama baffled.

“Damn, kid,” the fox muttured. “Guess I should feed you more often.”

Babies, he remembered distantly through Kushina’s memories, were utterly useless at digesting, so he would need to  _ burp  _ the kid in a moment, too. In the meantime, he set up the bassinet, and fetched a towel from the apartment bathroom (thankful that at least the furniture and such that  _ he  _ needed was already there). 

When the kid started squirming around, he picked him up, trying to remember how to do it.

He had the mental image of hitting the baby’s back, but that seemed...harsh. Maybe if he tapped it?

He drummed his fingers between Naruto’s shoulder blades. Immediately, the kid started squirming, clearly uncomfortable.

Okay, so that wasn’t right. 

He went for a light pat, instead, only the faintest of pressures in his fingers. Then he tried the same with his palm.

Finally, he let out a frustrated breath, and gave a more firm pat with his palm, figuring he’d just heal the kid if he fucked it up. 

Surprisingly, the baby let out a small burp, and passed right back out.

“All this kid does is sleep,” Kurama muttered. “What a lucky break.”

He settled the infant into the bassinet, and simply stared down into it for a while, wondering what to do next. 

“Okay, kid, here’s the issue,” he said, slowly. “I know sort of how to get  _ you  _ going in life...but what the hell do  _ I  _ do?”

Naruto slept on, and Kurama felt his stomach sink. This was, without a doubt, his worst plan ever.

Oh well, he only had a little over a decade before the kid would be able to unlock his seal safely. He could survive that, right? 

….

He wasn’t confident in the silence of the apartment, because it felt almost like an answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter starts the actual story, and takes place after a timeskip


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a time skip, we check in on how everyone's favorite chakra tank + his grumpy 'cousin' are doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot i had this in drafts so here you go, while i procrastinate ch32 of faab

_ “Pop!” _

Kurama’s eyes snapped open as his hands went up on reflex, catching the blur of orange that was barreling directly for his chest.

In an instant, he was holding a grinning twelve year old, dangling his limbs down from where he was suspended in mid-air, entirely unbothered by the hold.

“It’s  _ test day,  _ Pop.”

Kurama sighed. “Don’t call me that, pup.”

Naruto kicked his legs to get Kurama to release him, which he did. Immediately the kid was bolting back out of the room, shouting happily about ramen for breakfast.

Kurama’s protests toward Naruto’s nickname were usually in vain, but he felt the need to make them anyway. Around age eight, Naruto had finally caught on that their little living arrangement wasn’t totally normal, and immediately decided Kurama needed to be his dad, or at least something like it.

Thus, ‘Pop’ - a counter to Kurama’s nickname for him, ‘pup.’ Naruto didn’t use it all the time, but when he was excited or emotional, it came back with a vengeance. 

The only time Kurama didn’t argue it was when Naruto was sad, but luckily, those times were rare. 

Kurama dragged himself out of bed, throwing on a shirt to match the loose drawstring pants he slept in and heading to the kitchen to try and corral his ward into eating something with actual nutrition. 

Naruto was practically vibrating with excitement when Kurama got to him, but the fox was more focused on the pile of chairs in front of the counter.

He looked up, to see which cabinet they were under, and then to Naruto, who was happily setting water to boil for the cup of instant ramen he’d pulled down.

“Pup,” Kurama sighed. “I  _ know  _ I taught you chakra climbing. Why the hell would you climb chairs?”

“Faster,” Naruto chirped. “And more fun.”

For most shinobi, chakra climbing would have been faster. However, Naruto was hard pressed to be still at any time, and so chakra control - which required a sense of inner peace and stability - took a minute to achieve. As for the  _ fun  _ part, Kurama couldn’t even argue. Naruto  _ would  _ find it fun to build and scale a tower of questionable stability out of mismatched dining chairs.

That kid was gonna kill him, he swore it.

Kurama crossed the room, picking up the instant ramen cup and sticking it back in the cabinet, ignoring Naruto’s shout of protest. He then turned around, cutting off the eye of the stove, and looking down to the boy who was pouting at him.

“If you’re gonna eat crap,” he said, “At least eat  _ fresh  _ crap. C’mon, let’s go see the harpy and her old man.”

Naruto cheered, and Kurama would furiously deny his smile till his dying day. 

  
  
  


“Dad! Our favorite customer is here!”

Naruto grinned brightly as Ayame announced him, hopping up into one of the seats in front of the ramen stall. 

Kurama took his own seat at a more reserved pace, watching the teen girl at the counter warily. She had developed something of a puppy crush on him when she was around twelve, and Kurama had never quite gotten used to being blushed at by a teenage girl. It was really...disturbing.

Naruto thought it was hilarious, obviously. 

Teuchi came out of the back of the stand, coming up to the counter with a grin. “You two are early this morning, Naruto!”

“It’s test day,” the boy informed them. 

The chef looked to Kurama for clarification, which he gave easily. “He takes the graduation exam today.”

Teuchi smiled brightly down at Naruto. “Well then, we’ll have to get you a nice big good luck bowl, huh?”

“Yes, please!”

Kurama rolled his eyes. When Naruto was five, he’d whined to Kurama about the fact that they were always eating very similar things: basic meats, rice, vegetables...things Kurama didn’t have to think very hard about to make.

Kurama had responded that he couldn’t cook worth shit, but he knew people that  _ could,  _ and dragged Naruto to his mother’s once-favored shop to eat.

Old man Teuchi had instantly adopted the kid, recognizing Kushina’s son and ‘cousin’ as the loyal customers they quickly became. 

“How good do you feel about it?” Ayame asked, leaning on the counter. “Pretty confident?”

Naruto grinned brightly. “Yeah! I’ll definitely get it this time, y’know.”

Ayame looked to Kurama, as though for confirmation. The fox spirit shrugged. “He’s gotten better with chakra control, which is what screwed him last year,” Kurama offered. “But the written test is still a pain in the ass, and most of the practical test is too structured for him to have an easy time with. He’s definitely better than any of the kids in that class, if they’d just let him do what he knows, but the test is standardized. Nothing we can do about that.”

“Don’t worry, Pop!” Naruto cried, ignoring Kurama’s offended grunt at the return of the name. “I’ve got it this time! I’ve practiced all the test jutsu a hundred times.” He reached up, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m not great at clones, but I can henge really good, and substitutions are  _ easy.” _

Kurama hit Naruto over the back of the head. “Idiot, you’re gonna jinx yourself! Just eat your ramen, go to class, and do your best. Once you’re past the Academy, basic stuff won’t matter so much, and you’ll do great.”

Naruto grinned even harder as Teuchi handed a bowl of ramen across the counter, and he tucked in happily. 

“I wish you the best of luck,” Teuchi said. 

“Me, too,” Ayame added. “Make sure you come by when you’ve graduated, so we can have a celebration meal!”

“You just want to drain all my money,” Kurama muttered, and stuck his tongue out at the cheeky grins the others sent his way. 

“What are you up to today, Kurama?” Teuchi asked. “Anything special?”

Kurama rolled his eyes. “Another dumb milk run, as usual.”

“An actual one?” Ayame asked. “Or one of those that you  _ say  _ is basic and then come back from limping?”

Kurama grimaced. “That was a one-off. The bastard got a lucky hit. I’m not even leaving the village today, I can tell you that much. Can’t say much else, though.” He waved his hand noncommittally. “Which is probably already more than I should say, but whatever. I know who to trust. Sarutobi can eat me.”

Teuchi shook his head, chuckling. “One day, you’ll get in trouble, with all that insubordination.” 

“Nah,” Kurama said. “He knows I have stake in this village. He’s not gonna question that, no matter how much I bitch. At the end of the day, I’m here because it’s where I need to be. If nothing else, he trusts that.”

The other two smiled at him knowingly, and he ignored them, looking down to watch Naruto happily finish off his bowl of ramen. 

_ Twelve years,  _ he thought. Twelve years now, he’d guarded Naruto, protecting the other half of his chakra. Somewhere along the line, he’d grown fond of the kid, begrudgingly. He was a spitfire and a menace, and he had trouble with pretty much everything the Academy ever handed him, but he was also unerringly determined to succeed and blindly optimistic in all things. 

Kurama had never told him about the chakra sealed inside him. He’d told him only the basics of his parentage, never linking ‘your father’ to ‘Minato’ in his stories and being careful to only ever mention Kushina in passing, lest he make the connections himself. 

Naruto was twelve, and he still thought Kurama was human. 

He wondered, sometimes, if that was the best choice, but he didn’t really have options. Sarutobi had been very clear in their deal: Kurama could stay and watch out for Naruto, protecting his chakra, but he couldn’t influence the kid. Naruto would not be able to learn about his jinchuuriki status until  _ after  _ he became a genin, at  _ least _ . 

The second Kurama could, he’d train the kid to use his chakra properly, but he couldn’t risk Sarutobi thinking he was trying to brainwash Naruto. 

If he had any belief at all in religions, he’d be praying that Naruto graduated, since his attempts at doing it early all failed. If he didn’t have the chance to tell Naruto the truth soon, it was going to bite him in the ass later, he just knew it.

  
  
  


“This stage will be a practical exam,” Iruka announced. “On clone jutsu.”

Naruto sunk in his chair, stomach turning over.  _ Of all the things,  _ he thought. Clones were the  _ worst.  _

The regular clone jutsu, the one the Academy taught them, was a projection more than anything. It created the image of a copy of yourself, to distract enemies.

Naruto had never really gotten his head around that. Every time he went to make one, he went to make something with  _ substance,  _ and it ended up coming out into a weak physical form instead of a strong illusion. 

He’d tried to explain that once, to Kurama, and his cousin had told him it was because he had too much  _ Yang  _ chakra and not enough  _ Yin.  _

Honestly, Naruto wasn’t even that sure what that meant. Kurama’s explanations went over his head, sometimes.

The point stood, though, that Naruto was  _ absolutely  _ not prepared for the exam if the first test was enough to do him in already.

If he could just get a clone good enough to pass to the next stage, he’d be fine. He knew all of the other things they got tested on, he was sure of it. He just needed to…

“Naruto Uzumaki!”

Naruto winced, and headed to the front of the classroom. Standing before Iruka and the other teacher helping monitor the exams, Naruto grit his teeth.

_It has to be this time,_ he told himself. _You have_ _to graduate!_

Naruto brought his hands together into the appropriate sign, gathered his chakra, and  _ pushed. _

He felt the energy gather, swirling itself into the right shape to his side.  _ Condense it,  _ he reminded himself, and gathered it close, trying to morph it into the image he needed.

_ Crap!  _ He was trying to make it physical again. He tried to back up, pulling the chakra apart again so that it wouldn’t get too dense, but all that did was weaken the structure.

For a second, he almost had a proper  _ physical _ clone, but the second guessing did him in. 

He didn’t even have to look to know that the clone’s image was pathetic. He could feel that much humming through the chakra in it. 

The teachers in front of him argued a little over whether he could be permitted to pass, and Iruka ultimately decided not to let him continue. 

Naruto grit his teeth, and returned to his seat to wait out the end of the day. He’d go home, but Kurama was on a mission today, he’d said. No one would be there. 

As bad as it felt to hang around the classroom after failing his test, Naruto hated being alone more than anything else. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Fox,” Weasel called out, at Kurama’s approach. “You’re late.”

Kurama returned a middle finger, because he didn’t really care much for propriety, even when in his Anbu uniform. 

It helped that Weasel wouldn’t say anything against him: he owed Kurama too much.

Weasel’s identity under the mask was  _ technically  _ a secret, but Kurama was too good at recognizing chakra signatures and voices to be fooled by much for long, so the man underneath it didn’t stay hidden from him long. 

Itachi Uchiha was a class-A pain in the ass. Kurama couldn’t stand him, most of the time. However, they had a history, thanks to Sarutobi.

Sarutobi often kept Kurama around doing busy work when Naruto was in class, so that the Kyuubi wasn’t free to roam or do as he pleased. They weren’t really at that level of trust, even twelve years in.

Which was good, because most of his dumb errands amounted to leaving protective observation seals around the village. Four years prior, one of those seals had gone off in the middle of the night, detection huge flares in chakra - a fight between powerful shinobi.

Kurama had slapped a protection seal on the apartment, and booked it to the active marker, just in time to find Danzo Shimura knuckle-deep in Shisui Uchiha’s eye socket. 

Kurama had ended up stumbling onto the path of a huge conspiracy, where Danzo had been trying to pull strings to get the Uchiha run out of the village or killed, thinking they were responsible for the Kyuubi attack. 

Kurama had a good laugh about that, when everything was over, because he wasn’t even  _ wrong.  _ He was just  _ stupid _ . 

‘Madara’ Uchiha - or whoever he was, because Kurama really didn’t trust Minato to have been right about anything at all - was out there, somewhere, and Kurama owed him a few swift kicks. The village Uchihas, though, were mostly benign, and Kurama was pretty irritated that anyone would honestly believe any old Sharingan user could have taken control of the  _ Kyuubi.  _

Kurama was stronger than a standard genjutsu, and to imply otherwise was damn insulting. 

Kurama had taken Danzo’s throat out for it before he’d even stopped to consider asking Sarutobi about it.

Luckily, the old man had seen the logic in the move, and put Kurama in charge of hunting down Danzo’s ‘Root’ and getting it back to Anbu standard. 

There had been kids in the organization, and the Uchiha were allowed to earn forgiveness for their not-so-subtle coup d'etat plans by adopting them. 

Shisui Uchiha had gotten a transplanted eye, and he and Itachi had all but taken a blood oath in Kurama’s honor. 

So, Kurama could shoot rude gestures Itachi’s way all day long. He could insult him or shittalk the Hokage in front of him or any other number of not-recommended actions, and Itachi would just quietly take it in, grateful for Kurama’s interference in something that hadn’t even been done to help.

Honestly, that was the most annoying part: to this day, Itachi and Shisui both believed he’d torn out Danzo’s throat to save them and the village. Kurama couldn’t exactly explain that he’d been acting selfishly without giving himself away, so he chose to just dissuade their belief by being as openly disgusted by Konoha as possible. 

Not that it was a hardship, really. Humans were horrible, and they never got any better, even twelve years into his life among them. 

“It’s testing day at the Academy, right?” the eagle-masked Anbu to their side asked. “I imagine you were busy this morning.”

“Can you at least  _ pretend _ we don’t know who he is?” Itachi asked, sounding tired. “Anbu are meant to be anonymous.”

Kurama watched Shisui blink innocently through the holes in his eagle mask. “What do you mean? I have no idea who this man is.”

“I don’t make enough to put up with you two,” Kurama muttered. “Where are our other three?”

The Anbu had six divisions, and a standard mission team had one member from each. Shisui was the Bear, specializing in investigation and protection. Itachi was the Owl, meant for stealth and gathering intel. 

Kurama was the Wolf. He specialized in secrets, and in making the tough calls. He was there to do what others couldn’t, when human empathy needed to be left behind to do what was necessary. 

With the three of them present, they had no team leader, the Dragon, nor did they have medic, the Frog, or an assassin, the Cat. 

The latter two were optional, really, but the former was important. If they didn’t have someone who was clearly in charge, the others tended to defer to Kurama, and Kurama  _ hated  _ having to keep up with the details of what everyone else was doing. He vastly preferred working alone, leaving the rest of the ‘team’ to their own devices. 

Probably why he was rarely given out-of-village missions, honestly. Even more than Sarutobi’s (understandable) reluctance to trust him, Kurama had no concept of teamwork. If he could get ahead by leaving the others behind, he would, and he  _ had.  _

Only once had he ever hesitated to abandon a teammate, and that was the mission Ayame had referenced at the ramen shop. The one where he’d been injured, and come back to Konoha bleeding from his side and ready to kill anyone who dared to look twice at him. 

“We don’t have a full team,” Shisui told Kurama. “It’s an intel mission, so we’re the only ones needed. Hopefully.”

Kurama took advantage of the mask on his face to sneer at Shisui, since no one could see his expression under the porcelain anyway.  _ These kids keep jinxing themselves,  _ he thought.  _ And me, in the process. Assholes.  _

“What’re we after?”

Itachi handed him a scroll, and Kurama grimaced as he accepted it. 

He wasn’t... _ great _ , with written orders. Much like Naruto, he tended to misread things on paper. Except while Naruto’s problem was an inability to focus, Kurama’s was an outright inability to  _ understand.  _ Reading wasn’t something he ever really paid much mind to, inside his jinchuuriki, and so he wasn’t particularly good at it. He had to teach himself over the years, and he was still slow and unsure most of the time. 

Luckily, the Uchiha had worked with him long enough to know how quick he was to screw up a written command, and so Itachi started explaining the same second the scroll changed hands. 

“This year, Konoha hosts the Chunin exams,” Itachi said. “Genin from other villages have to put forth their names at least six months in advance - which is now. We have to go through all the potentials, and clear them to take the test if they meet the requirements.”

“So we’re setting up a fucking seating chart,” Kurama summarized. “That old bastard. He ought to make one of his little assistants do this. The teacher would love it.”

“Iruka is doing the Academy testing, today,” Itachi reminded him. “And there is always the chance that a hostile village would send fake genin spies to the exams.” 

Kurama scoffed. “Yeah, right. The old man just didn’t want me to have time to go pace outside the Academy, huh?”

“Probably,” Shisui said. “This is Naruto’s fourth exam, right?”

Kurama bristled. “He’s better than that stupid teacher is giving him credit for! He’s not good with basics, and he can’t read for shit.”

“Is that a genetic issue?”

Kurama turned a furious glare on Itachi. “What did you just fucking say?! I’ll tear you into shreds, Weasel.” 

“It’s a genuine question!” Shisui defended his cousin. “We’re not trying to be insulting.”

“You can shove your ‘genuine questions’ right up your-...”

“Fox.”

Kurama froze mid-threat, and whipped around to turn his glare on the new intruder. He relaxed, though, when he saw who it was.    
“Inoichi,” he greeted. “You’re with us today, huh? I guess they didn’t want you pacing either.”

Inoichi waved him off. “I’m not worried. Ino has the best grades in her class, even if she isn’t Rookie of the Year. I think the three of us were all flight risks, though - Sasuke is taking it, too, isn’t he?”

Itachi let out a loud sigh. “Why do we even wear masks?”

Kurama shrugged. “I never saw the point in it, honestly. They’re really just annoying.”

“Don’t worry about it, Itachi,” Inoichi said. “The point is to leave a  _ reasonable doubt  _ about your identity. If anyone shady finds out your identity, we trust you to do what you need to in order to protect your secrets.”

“Then can I take this fucking thing off?”

“Nope! It’s still the uniform.”

“Fuck off, Inoichi.”

“Rude, Kurama! I’m telling Hiroko.” 

“Don’t hide behind your wife, coward!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot is going to start off almost inline with show canon and then slowly branch farther away so. theres that


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Uzumaki clan protects their own.

“Uzumaki!”

Kurama forced himself not to look up, even though he knew the person was probably calling out to him. Anbu rules were clear: in your mask, you didn’t have a name, no matter what. 

“Uzumaki! Naruto is-...”

Kurama moved, ripping his mask off as he stood, spinning to face the messenger who had run into the room. “What happened? Where’s Naruto?”

“He went missing from the Academy after classes dismissed,” he said. “And now a forbidden scroll has been reported stolen. They’re claiming he took it.” 

Kurama scowled. “Bullshit. The kid  _ hates _ reading, what the fuck is he gonna do with a scroll?” He didn’t wait for a reply, just storming out of the room, cracking his knuckles as he went. “Screw it, I’m not gonna argue. I’m gonna go find the pup.”

“Kurama!” Inoichi called after him. “If he did take the scroll-...”

“He didn’t! It wouldn’t make any damn sense!”

“Then what will you do?”

Kurama paused in the doorway, turning cold eyes back on the men behind him. Each of them froze, because that expression reminded them of something they often forgot: while Kurama had stake in Konoha, and would serve it well because of that, at the end of the day he was only there for Naruto. That glare was a reminder that if any of them got between him and the true holder of his loyalty, he’d kill them without hesitation. 

“If he did, I’ll kick his ass,” Kurama said. “But that’s for  _ me  _ to do, not anyone else. If he took it, he’s got a reason, I’m sure of that at least. Let me find out why before anyone calls for blood.”

  
  
  
  


Tracking Naruto down was easy as breathing, for Kurama, twelve years of practice making his individual chakra signature like a homing beacon. 

The problem was, he wasn’t alone. There were two others with him.

He could smell blood, too.

As he froze mid-step on a treetop, he stared down in shock at the clearing below.

There were, quite possibly, a hundred Narutos in the woods. A seeking flick of his chakra revealed them all solid forms - shadow clones, the ones Naruto had always been drawn to making naturally. 

Pretty damn impressive, even for a jinchuuriki. That was probably the Uzumaki standard excessive chakra. 

Plus, Naruto coming from two stubborn, boneheaded shinobi like his parents- he didn’t stand a chance at not being completely ridiculous. 

In the center of all the clones stood one of the chunin Academy instructors - Mizuki, if Kurama remembered correctly. Some loose canon that had been under suspicion for killing a teammate once, before he was hired as a teacher.

Whatever was going on, that guy must have been the one behind it.

“Naruto!” Kurama called.

Every Naruto clone, and the sole Mizuki, froze and turned to the tree branch he was perched on. 

“What’s going on here, pup?”

Naruto straightened up. “Kurama! Mizuki-sensei told me about this scroll, and said I could use it to learn a jutsu to pass the exam! But he just wanted me to steal it so he could have it. He told me…” Naruto looked to the man, then back up to Kurama. “...He said that I’m a demon. That the nine-tailed fox spirit is inside me.”

Kurama grit his teeth, and looked to Mizuki. The man stumbled back, eyes wide as he took in the pure rage radiating from Kurama.

He looked back down to Naruto. “That’s true, pup. There was a village-wide ban on talking about it, and I was told I couldn’t say a word about it until you graduated the Academy. But since I guess that’s out the window...”

Kurama hopped down out of the tree, strolling across the open field to the original Naruto. Finding the version of the kid that contained his other half of chakra wasn’t any effort at all, and he put his hand on the kid’s head, crouching down to look him in the eye. 

“You’re not a demon, or a spirit, or anything else like that,” Kurama said. “You’re a jinchuuriki. That’s not a bad thing to be, if you know what you’re doing. I can help you learn how to control that chakra, to work  _ with  _ it instead of  _ against  _ it, but that’s for later.” He poked a finger between Naruto’s brows. “For now, watch me. Every shinobi, at some point in time, witnesses their first death.” Kurama stood, and finally relaxed his cloak of chakra.

Kurama’s human appearance was not naturally achieved, his chakra too bestial to be contained so easily. His natural humanoid form was very similar to the Sage’s appearance, and looked somewhat like a strange oni to the untrained eye.

He let that form loose, now, and turned to watch Mizuki’s eyes go wide with pure terror.

“Most shinobi are scum,” Kurama growled. “Finding one with a good, pure heart is rare. And when you find that one, you have to protect that innocence. Its death is worse than any other.” He approached the chunin teacher, giving him a wicked, bloodthirsty grin.

“Y-you…” Mizuki stuttered out. “ _ You’re _ a demon!”

“I’m  _ the  _ demon,” Kurama corrected, and placed sharp nails against Mizuki’s chest. He called out over his shoulder, to Naruto, “You have that light in you, Naruto. Protect it, or you’ll end up a pathetic washout like this one.” He sneered down at Mizuki. “One who doesn’t deserve any better than death.”

Mizuki opened his mouth, probably going to stutter out some attempt at a courageous last word, but Kurama didn’t let him. He sunk his fingers in, the pointed tips of his Sage form cutting straight through the man’s chest, and ripped out his heart.

The body dropped to the ground, and Kurama held his fist out, crushing the organ in it as its muscles tried to beat one last time. 

The clones around him popped, and Kurama looked to see Naruto watching him with wide eyes - and, behind him, his teacher, sitting under a tree and bleeding. 

Kurama pulled his human veil back up as quickly as he could, before heading over. “Iruka, right?” he called. “You were involved in this?”

“He protected me!” Naruto called, apparently recovering from his shock to defend his teacher. “He stopped Mizuki, and blocked an attack meant for me. It hurt him instead.”

Kurama crouched in front of the teacher, coating a palm in chakra and placing it against his side, starting to heal the wound. “You did, huh? That’s...appreciated.”

He’d be damned if he said  _ thank you  _ to a human, even one who probably saved Naruto’s life. 

“You…” Iruka breathed to him. “What are you?”

Kurama’s lips twitched up into a small, twisted smile, and he met Iruka’s eyes with his own cold, angry ones.

“I’m Naruto’s guardian,” he said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Naruto rushed forward, coming to a stop at Kurama’s side. “You’re helping him, right?” Naruto cried, putting his hands on Kurama’s shoulder. “You’re going to fix him?”

“He’s not  _ broken,  _ pup,” Kurama told him. “His wound isn’t even that bad. I can fix it fine. You can tell Iruka wasn’t the one he was aiming for. Not shinobi worth the headband would leave such an unobtrusive wound.”

“It doesn’t  _ feel  _ very unobtrusive,” Iruka muttered, before his eyes widened and he sat up a little straighter. “Oh, Naruto! That reminds me. Come here a second.”

Kurama narrowed his eyes, watching closely as Naruto walked up to Iruka’s side. 

Iruka reached out with one hand and snatched Naruto’s goggles off his head, setting them aside while ignoring the kid’s protests, and reached up to his own head, toward his hitai-ate. 

A moment later, Iruka had it tied around the kid’s forehead, and was smiling at his shocked expression. “That was a very impressive jutsu, back there. I’d say it was good enough to graduate. Congrats on becoming a genin, Naruto.”

Naruto cheered, throwing his arms around Iruka in a hug. Kurama rolled his eyes and pulled his hand back - he wasn’t going to be able to heal the teacher any better than he already had, especially with a child in the way.

“Don’t get too excited, pup,” Kurama warned. “You could always end up with a shitty team.”

“Kurama!” Naruto protested. “That doesn’t matter! I’m a shinobi, now, and nothing’s gonna stop me.” He turned a determined look on his guardian. “I don’t care if I have a demon in me! I don’t care if nobody but you likes me! I’m going to be the greatest ninja ever, and they’ll all have to acknowledge that. And most of all, I’m never, ever, going to let  _ anyone  _ hurt my precious people.” 

Kurama laughed, and flicked Naruto’s forehead. “I believe it, pup.” He wiped the blood on his hand off on his pant leg, and stood. “Come on, let’s head home. I have a lot to explain to you, I think, and it’s gonna take a while to get through everything.”

“Kurama-san,” Iruka called to him. When Kurama looked down, raising an eyebrow, Iruka grimaced. “What are you going to tell the Hokage, about tonight?”

“Mizuki stole the scroll,” Kurama said. “He did it through Naruto, but he still did it. I’ll run the scroll back and drop it off, and let them know he’s done for.” He scratched at the back of his head. “Eh, the old man’ll probably get ticked off at me for taking it into my own hands, but whatever. Sometimes you have to handle your own business.” 

“I see,” Iruka said. “Thank you for your help tonight, Kurama-san.”

“Don’t mention it,” Kurama muttered, uncomfortable at the fast-approaching friendly tone. “Naruto would have handled it if I hadn’t. Well, except the healing. The kid’s garbage at medical ninjutsu.”

“That’s true,” Naruto admitted. “Oh, Pop, can we get ramen now? Ayame said to come by when I graduated!”

“I think she meant during the day, pup,” Kurama told him. He looked to Iruka. “One last thing, before we go. You didn’t see me, back there. Whatever you think you saw, whatever you thought happened, it wasn’t real. Got it?”

“You don’t have to worry, Kurama-san,” Iruka said. “Whatever that was, it was there for Naruto’s protection. That’s all I care about.” 

“Good!” He looked down to Naruto. “Alright, pup. Let’s go now. We have a lot to go over, and I need to take the old man that scroll before he pops a blood vessel over it.”

  
  
  
  
  


Later on in the night found Kurama pressing a mug of tea into Naruto’s hands and sitting across from him at the table, leaning forward on his elbows casually. “Okay, pup. Ask away.”

“What was that thing you did in the forest, with your face?” Naruto asked. “Was it a henge? It was so cool! You’re so strong, Pop, it’s awesome. How did you find me? What is the spirit in me going to do? What did you mean about-..?”

“One question at a time, kid!” Kurama interrupted. “Pick one to start with!”

There was a pause, and Naruto looked a little more somber. 

“You killed him,” he said, softly. “You didn’t even hesitate. How could you just...do that?”

“He was scum,” Kurama said. “He wanted to kill you, and Iruka, and who knows who else along the way. He was trying to steal a forbidden scroll and pin the whole thing on you. He wasn’t someone anyone will miss, and honestly?” Kurama sipped his tea, thoughtful, before continuing. “Even if he was, I wouldn’t have felt bad killing him. You swore to protect your precious people, right? I’m the same way. You’re under my protection. No one is gonna get away with hurting you when I’m around. I’d kill a hundred shinobi without batting an eye, if it kept you safe.”

“Because we’re family?”

Kurama grimaced. “Once, I would have said no, actually. But...yeah. I kind of like having you around, pup, even if I was originally just in it for myself.”

“What does that mean?” Naruto asked. 

Kurama sighed. “This is the explaining bit, then. Let me start at the beginning: twelve years ago, the nine-tailed fox was set loose on the village, under the control of a genjutsu. It attacked the village, and a lot of shinobi died trying to stop it. Finally, the Fourth Hokage realized they couldn’t take it down. They had to seal it away.” He smiled at Naruto. “Luckily, that moron and his wife had just had a baby, right there on the battlefield. Minato decided to split the Kyuubi’s chakra, and seal half of it away in himself and the other half in his son, before dying.”

“I’m the Fourth Hokage’s son?” Naruto asked, awed. 

“Yeah,” Kurama confirmed. “You are. And you’re also the host to half the chakra of the nine-tailed fox.”

Naruto frowned. “And the other half died in my dad?”

“No,” Kurama said. “Minato tried to seal it into himself, but the seal failed. His chakra was too exhausted from the fight with the one controlling the Kyuubi, and he couldn’t complete the second sealing. So, instead, he tried to do something brand new: he tried to release the chakra, hoping that a version of the nine-tails with only half its chakra would be weak enough for the village to take down.”

“Was it?”

“Dunno,” Kurama said. “I didn’t try and attack again.”

Naruto blinked, and Kurama could practically see the wheels turning in his head.   
“The other half of the chakra condensed into a physical body,” Kurama explained. “That body was me.”

“ _ You’re _ the Kyuubi?” Naruto cried out. “So the other half of your chakra is in me? And that’s why you stayed with me?”

“The plan was to stay with you until you were old enough to survive a re-sealing,” Kurama confirmed. “And then take my chakra back. But your systems are too tightly interwoven with that chakra, at this point - trying to rip it out would probably kill you. So I guess I’m just gonna have to suck it up and teach you how to use it, and worry about getting it back in a few decades or so.” 

“That’s…” Naruto stared at Kurama, stunned. “That’s so  _ cool!  _ So I’m super powerful, right? Can I do stuff like you did in the forest? Grow horns and stuff?”

Kurama laughed. “No, pup, that’s just me. That’s the body I ended up in, when I was too weak to return to my usual fox form. It’s meant to look like the Sage of Six Paths, but it ends up just looking like a demon to most people. Which suits me just fine, really.” He reached out, ruffling Naruto’s hair. “You can do some pretty cool things, though, if you learn how to manage your chakra and my other half. Starting today, you’re gonna have two sets of lessons: your missions with your genin team, once you get one, and jinchuuriki lessons with me. Sound good, pup?”

“Sounds great!”

“Good. Now go to  _ bed _ , we’ve been out all night.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team assignments are given out, and Kurama is less than pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> naruto: hey my sensei is a moron  
> kurama, immediately: oh no its kakashi

Team assignment day came upon the Uzumaki household far sooner than Kurama had anticipated, and everyone felt the fallout of that. Kurama was not one to take being caught off guard lightly, and him waking up one day to a grinning Naruto reminding him he was about to get his team assignment was...not great. 

Especially since the Anbu mission of the day was outside the village walls, touching up Kurama’s perimeter seals. The Kyuubi practically radiated tense, nervous energy, and his team gave him a wide berth to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of his temper. 

Well, most of them. 

“You know who his teammates will likely be,” Itachi said. “He is the bottom tier student, academically. He’ll be put with the two highest scorers for balance.”

“In theory,” Kurama said. “But that old man loves to screw with me, and even if his teammates are set in stone, his sensei won't be. Who knows what nutjob will draw the short straw and get saddled with Naruto’s Team? If it's some asshole that doesn't treat him fairly-...”

“The pot of chosen jounin this year is limited,” Shisui interrupted smoothly. “They kept it selective, considering the amount of important students in this graduating class. Lots of clan heirs, this year.”

“Clan heirs, my ass,” Kurama said. “They kept it tight for Naruto. Don’t try and bullshit. They've held back first time senseis for three years now, and you'd have to stupid to not notice it was tied to Naruto trying to graduate.” 

“Inoichi, please talk him around to sense,” Shisui pleaded with their ‘supervisor’ - the casual lie of a title that Inoichi had assigned himself to justify him following them around yet again. 

“He can't say  _ shit _ to me,” Kurama spat. “He already knows where his kid is going. InoShikaCho is already set up to succeed.”

Inoichi, leaning against a nearby tree, hummed noncommittally. “Nothing’s ever set in stone for a shinobi, Kurama. You never know what might happen.”

Kurama’s eyes narrowed in a way that suggested he'd have glared at Inoichi, if it weren't for the intense focus he had to keep on the seal in front of him. “All I know is that whoever gets Naruto better treat him like a fucking ninja. Not a brat, and not a monster. A  _ ninja.”  _

“Every jounin in the village knows you'd gut a man for so much as looking at that kid wrong,” Inoichi said. “There are only a handful who would be stupid enough to do it anyway, and I'm pretty sure they were all blacklisted. Except maybe Kakashi, but they never give him real teams. That man shouldn't be in charge of a gerbil, let alone kids.”

“He was a decent Anbu commander,” Itachi defended. “Not necessarily pleasant to work with, but...efficient.”

“Yeah, that's not great for twelve year olds,” Inoichi countered. “They need someone firm, sure, but not heartless.”

“Kakashi isn't heartless,” Shisui said. “He’s just a little...callous.”

“Why the fuck are we talking about Kakashi, again?” Kurama cut them off. “We were talking about Naruto. You know, the important thing.”

Inoichi and Itachi met eyes, and the former made a big show of rolling his eyes. 

“I can feel you laughing at me, Inoichi, and I will skin you alive.”

Inoichi gave a wistful sigh. “I wish you'd work for me. You’d be great in T&I.”

Kurama snorted. “Aren't you normally saying the opposite?” 

Inoichi shrugged. “You’d kill everyone in the department, but some days that sounds like less of a downside than others.”

“Naruto will be fine,” Itachi cut in. “I'm sure he’ll be just as happy with his team regardless of who is on it.”

“It’s not like he has a preference,” Shisui added. “The kid has no friends.”

Itachi and Inoichi both sighed, resigned, as Kurama spun around and yelled out a series of increasingly graphic suggestions for what Shisui could do with his input.

Honestly, it was a good thing the Hokage wasn't giving them actual missions right now. Clearly, those wouldn't end well. 

  
  
  
  


When Naruto got home, Kurama had already been there for nearly two full hours, and he was about to start calling for blood. 

As it was, he hopped off his perch on the corner of the kitchen counter and practically sprinted at his ward. “Where were you? I asked you to come straight home.”

“I did!” Naruto defended himself. “Our stupid sensei took  _ forever  _ to show up. You should have seen him. He totally walked right into my prank, and it wasn’t even a really cool one. He's totally a moron.”

Kurama’s stomach turned, because he knew only a handful of jounin that would ever let themselves fall into a trap like Naruto’s little ‘pranks,’ and none of them were ones he particularly liked. 

An echo of Inoichi’s words in the woods came to him, and if Kurama had an ounce of faith, he'd have  _ prayed _ his intuition was wrong. 

“Stupid Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto continued to rant, and Kurama’s stomach dropped like lead. “At least my teammates are good!”

_ That  _ was a distraction that Kurama was happy to take. “Who'd you get?”

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto said. “And Ino!”

...Ino? 

_ Nothings set in stone,  _ Inoichi had said. 

He'd known. Whether the old man warned him or it was something Shikaku Nara had puzzled out in that maze of a head he had, Kurama didn't care. They were going to be unrecognizable as  _ meat  _ when Kurama was done with them. 

“They gave you the girls, then?” Kurama asked, holding his tone in the realm of carefully disinterested. “What were the other teams?”

“...Uh.”

Kurama looked down at Naruto. “You don't remember  _ any?”  _

“Sure I do!” Naruto said. “Sasuke got on a team with Shikamaru and Choji.” Naruto rubbed the back of his head. “Ino and Sakura were really pouty about it, and it ticked me off, kinda.”

“Oh?” Kurama raised an eyebrow. Naruto’s tone had the slightly guilty edge to it that suggested he'd done something about that irritation, too. “What'd you do?”

For whatever reason, the question made Naruto’s whole face turn a deep red, and scrunch up like he'd bitten into a lemon. “Nothing! Not on purpose, anyway. I got pushed, is all.”

Kurama watched Naruto curiously, but got no further explanation, the kid simply fleeing toward his room. 

“I gotta skip breakfast tomorrow!” he called over his shoulder. “Kakashi-sensei said we’ll get sick otherwise.”

Kurama was going to be heavily tempted to follow Naruto to his genin exam, just to witness what mayhem would ensue, but he had other matters to attend to. 

Putting up a barrier seal on the apartment for the night, Kurama headed out, making his way toward a flower shop in the civilian district. 

He was going to tear Inoichi a new one, keeping secrets like that. Kurama had only two friends, reluctant as they were. They could at least _tell_ _him_ shit. 

  
  
  
  


Kurama never knocked. Hiroko more or less invited him to live there, a few years into their odd friendship, when she'd finally worked up the nerve to tell him that he was a  _ shit  _ guardian. 

(He tried his best, dammit, but humans didn't make any fucking  _ sense _ . Why couldn't human babies have better instincts than “eat the shiny things" and “pull on all hair”?)

Kurama had rejected the offer, but took it as a cue he was welcome anytime, and proceeded to ignore the concept of private space entirely and simply waltz in when he felt like it. 

Inoichi must have warned his family that Kurama would be hunting him, though, because the door swung open the second he hit the front steps and he was rammed into by roughly 38 kilos of blonde haired child. 

Not unusual, really, except that this one  _ wasn't his. _

“Kurama!” Ino cried out, grabbing the front of his shirt. “I'm on Naruto’s team! Me and Sakura both!” 

“I  _ know _ ,” Kurama told her. “That’s why I came by. Your father is a dead man, Ino. I'm sorry it's come to this.”

Ino stuck her tongue out. “Don’t be mean about it! It took forever to convince him to let me change teams. Shikamaru and Choji are okay, but they're so  _ lazy.  _ I want to be on the strongest team.” She made a face, then, just shy of a grimace. “Even if Sasuke got on a different team. At least he's in my spot, not with any other girls.”

Kurama was pretty sure Sasuke Uchiha didn't know what a girl  _ was.  _ His world view, from what little he gathered from Itachi’s limited stories, was composed entirely of Uchiha pride and a strong resentment toward Kurama - both for the obviously irritating outing of the Uchiha coup, and for the more petty (and probably more severe) crime of winning Itachi’s respect, which was a coveted treasure to the little shit, or something like that. If Sasuke was even distantly aware other children  _ existed _ , Kurama heavily doubted they interested him. 

“Strongest team, huh?” He asked, trying to veer the subject back to one that didn’t make him so heavily uncomfortable. “You and Sakura are the best with theory, and quick studies, and Naruto’s a powerhouse if you can get him to listen. The three of you will be a terror.”

“Our sensei is an idiot,” Ino told him. “I mean, he’s a jounin, so obviously he must be at least  _ good,  _ but he doesn’t care about anything. He was super late to our meeting  _ and  _ let Naruto prank him.” She batted her eyelashes at him with false innocence. “Uncle Kurama,” she said, a title she ever only gave him when she wanted something. “You know all the jounin, right? What’s Kakashi-sensei like?”

“An idiot,” Kurama told her, because he really didn’t give a shit, and she deserved a warning. “He’s a pervert and a lazy asshole, and he’s probably just a little bit crazy. But everyone I know who has served under him likes him, and he’s pretty widely respected. Apparently he’s got a loyalty complex, too, but that’s just what I’ve heard.”

“Thank you!” Ino said, grinning at him. “That should help us win him over, I think.”

Kurama scowled, and flicked the girl on the forehead. “Quit using me to cheat on tests!”

Ino rubbed at her forehead, pouting, when a shadow fell over her. Both those on the steps looked up to see Hiroko, watching him with an unimpressed stare.

“Come to make me a widow?” she asked. 

“I’ll make sure to leave the body intact for the funeral,” Kurama promised.

Hiroko laughed. “One day, you’ll give someone a heart attack, how seriously you can say stuff like that. Get in here, and quit picking on my kid. The sooner you rip into my husband, the sooner I can force dinner on you and kick you out.”

Kurama followed her into the house, kicking off his shoes as he went (a human custom that he never really understood, but followed anyway), and rolled his eyes. “Naruto turned in early. Something about his test tomorrow, but I was distracted by my plans to gut Inoichi.”

“Harsh, Kurama,” Inoichi called, walking out of the kitchen to join them in the living room. “I would have told you! I just wasn’t allowed. Team assignments are classified until they’re given out.”

“Go easy on him,” Hiroko said. “Ino  _ begged  _ us to let her swap teams.”

“She begged you?” Inoichi cried out. “She  _ threatened  _ me! The last thing I need is her and Naruto teaming up to prank me for keeping their dream team apart.”

Hiroko covered her mouth to hide a giggle, and Kurama shot Ino a thumbs up as unsubtly as possible. 

“It’s true,” Ino admitted through a laugh. “He didn't have a choice.”

Kurama scowled. “And does your dad know what sensei your dream team landed?”

Inoichi straightened in front of him, looking suddenly alarmed. “I'm taking it that means they didn't get Asuma?”

Kurama snorted. “Nope. They managed to get saddled with the Copy-Nin.” 

Inoichi let a groan, burying his face in his hands. “I should have taken the risk. They're doomed.”

Ino blinked, looking between them. “Is he that bad? I thought it might have been an act, the whole  _ stupid _ thing.”

“Oh, it is,” Kurama assured her. “He’s a genius. He's a fucking moron in everything other than jutsu, but as a ninja, he's almost unparalleled. The problem is, he's a piece of shit.”

“Kurama,” Hiroko scolded. “He isn't that bad.”

Kurama glared at her. “Kakashi Hatake is a pervert, an idiot, and an asshole. The only things he understands are assassinations and porn.”

“You’re still bitter about the Kiri mission, then.”

“Damn right I am!” Kurama snapped. 

“What mission?” Ino asked, immediately interested, just as she always was when potentially classified information got spilled around her, the nosy little  _ shit _ . 

“I had a mission to Kiri once with Hatake,” Kurama told her, not really caring that she wasn't supposed to know by Anbu rules. “It was  _ supposed  _ to be information gathering, but dog-brain killed all the Kiri nin before I could get anything useful out of them.”

Ino’s eyes widened. “Really? So he's a killer?”

“ _ I’m  _ a killer,” Kurama corrected her. “ _ He’s  _ an impulsive sadist.”

She frowned. “He better not try and make Sakura or Naruto like him. I don't care if he's my jounin sensei, I'll beat him up.”

Kurama snorted. “I'm sure you would, brat. Your flower shop would get a lot of business selling offerings for your headstone, too.”

“Kakashi wouldn’t kill a kid,” Ino defended. “It would probably bring back bad memories.”

Ino tipped her head. “What's that supposed to mean? Has he killed  _ kids _ before?”

Kurama reached out, dropping a hand down on the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it. The second I leave here, I'm hunting down the old man, and asking him what the hell he's thinking. If nothing else, I'll ask to sit in on your test.” 

“What if he says no?”

Kurama laughed. “Ino, sweetheart, it's funny you think he  _ could.” _

  
  
  
  


It was a true testament to the sheer drama of the times Kurama had stormed into the Hokage’s office in the past twelve years that the same second Kurama entered the building, everyone lower than A-rank suddenly vanished. 

Even some of the jounin were hesitant to stick around an angry Kurama, and for good reason. His anger was a wildfire, uncontainable and indiscriminate. Everyone who stumbled into his path during a rampage was a target, and Kurama was  _ merciless.  _

He rarely resorted to physical violence- he didn't have to. He had the strength of a bijuu. He could cloak himself in a physical blanket of chakra and bear down with it, sending even the most stoic of ninja scrambling away. However, everyone knew that Kurama had a very loose care for laws and a generally lax attitude toward concepts of human decency, so no one ever put their trust in him keeping his hands to himself when cornered. 

Kurama supposed it might have had something to do with him chucking that one translator chunnin through a wall, but that had been the day he got back from his Kiri mission with Hatake, and he wasn't in the mood for someone to cite regulations at him about Anbu attire. 

_ Fuck  _ the Anbu. No way Kurama would keep a porcelain sheet on his face when he was debating the merits of ripping out someone's throat.

The Hokage’s door was shut, which usually meant that something important was going on, but also could just mean the old man wanted peace and quiet. 

Kurama didn't give a shit either way, and slammed his palm flat against the center of the door, where he knew the seal on the other side was centered. A surge of chakra popped it open with practiced ease, and he swung the door open, heading in entirely casually. 

“Kurama,” Sarutobi sighed. “I wondered when you would come by.” 

Kurama looked at the old man, and then at the man seated in front of the Hokage’s desk, silver hair sticking up in a wild arc. 

“Oh, good,” Kurama said. “I can kill you both at once. Thanks for saving me the effort.”

Kakashi turned a lazy, bored eye his way. “Hm? Did you say something?”

Kurama shot him a rude gesture, and Sarutobi sighed again, this one far more irate than resigned.

“Kakashi is a perfectly capable jounin,” Sarutobi said. “If you have a legitimate concern about him being permitted a team, you can file a complaint and let investigations look into it.”

Kurama scowled.  _ “Inoichi  _ is investigations, and he agrees with me. This guy shouldn't be in charge of a goldfish, let alone three kids.”

“Ouch,” Kakashi said. “That's hurtful, Uzumaki.”

Kurama didn't even look at him. “How did the rest of his teams fare? I'm guessing not well. I've never seen him with genin.”

“Because he's never had a team.”

Kurama blinked. “You’re letting a  _ new sensei  _ take  _ Naruto?” _

“I've tested teams before,” Kakashi informed him. “I just failed them all.”

Kurama stared at him for a long moment, before looking to Sarutobi again. “I want to sit in on their test.”

“An unprecedented request,” Hiruzen said. “I suppose you have an argument for it?”

“Naruto has been working with disadvantages his whole life,” Kurama said. “I want to make sure he's not going to face another one fresh out of the academy. I need to make sure Kakashi treats Naruto like a  _ kid _ , not a demon.”

“I won't treat him as either,” Kakashi interrupted. “I'll treat him like a shinobi.”

“I've seen how you treat shinobi,” Kurama snapped. “Treat Naruto that way and they'll be scraping splatters of you off the walls.”

“You want me to baby him, then?”

Kurama grit his teeth, carefully holding his lips to hide the rapidly sharpening canines in his mouth as his temper flared. “I want you to treat him with humanity, and as far as I've seen, that's not something you have.”

Kakashi’s single eye did not offer a lot of room for emotional expression, but Kurama was a bijuu whose greatest asset was the ability to sense negative emotions. Anger, grief, and guilt all swarmed inside the man in front of him, and Kurama might have been curious if he wasn't so damn  _ mad.  _

Looking to Sarutobi, he repeated his request. “I want to sit in on his test. I won't interfere, and the kids won't even know I'm there. I just... need to make sure.”

“Permission granted,” Sarutobi told him. Looking to Kakashi, he added, “Sorry, but he would have gone anyway. At least this way I have his word he’ll stay out of it.”

“I keep my word, always,” Kurama informed Kakashi. “So when I say I’ll  _ destroy _ you if you do anything to Naruto, believe me, I  _ will.”  _

With those as his parting words, Kurama turned on his heel, and left the office. 

“Well,” Kakashi said. “That was pleasant.” 

Sarutobi gave him a weary, sympathetic smile. “With Kurama? Few things ever are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kurama was pretty mean to kakashi if you KNOW kakashi's backstory and personality and why he's Like That but,,,kurama doesnt


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bell Test, or "How Kurama Decided Kakashi Is The Worst™"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is the last chapter that runs parallel to canon  
> after this point, all bets are off

Kurama made sure Naruto got up on time to head to meet his sensei for his test, and reluctantly let the child leave without breakfast. Something about that struck Kurama as vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it, so he ignored it. Instead, He waited for Naruto to leave, counted out five minutes, and then headed out on his own. 

Masking chakra was easy for a skilled shinobi, but Kurama was not really human. He was less a container of chakra and more a construct of it. Stifling chakra would require him to either seal himself or wear himself out in a way he probably couldn't without leveling Konoha. 

Luckily, Kakashi already knew he would be there, and the kids weren't trained in recognizing chakra signatures. Kurama’s form answered to his will, every change in appearance a conscious decision, so a change of body didn't require any more effort than that he used to hold back his natural sage form every day. 

In between one step and the next, as he would through the woods, Kurama dropped from two legs to four paws, orange fox form feeling intensely welcoming after years without it. He was large compared to a normal fox, like this, but still small enough to be dismissed - especially with only one tail flicking behind him. It sat wrong with him to pass himself off as a plain forest fox instead of a powerful kitsune, but he had no choice. He needed the children to ignore him, and he couldn't risk Kakashi looking to far into his choice of disguise. 

_ Fox  _ was his codename in Anbu, and Inoichi had remarked once that it must have been a morbid joke on Sarutobi’s part, and that was all the speculation anyone ever really put toward it. Hard to ask why his Anbu alias was the face of a creature that killed his ‘family,’ when Anbu weren't even supposed to exist under their masks. Kakashi knew his Anbu name and file, though, and he would hopefully write off Kurama’s choice as something done to be noticeable. Kakashi knew that Kurama wanted the copy-nin to see him, to know he was there, lest he consider hurting Naruto in any way. 

Kurama expected to stumble upon the introduction of the three kids to their sensei in actual teaching mode, but instead he found three bleary-eyed children staring at each other in confusion. 

Kurama twitched, a bad feeling crawling up his spine. Kakashi had a reputation for being late to everything short of S-rank assignments, and it seemed that would extend to the kids he was sent to teach. 

What a  _ prick. _

Kurama settled down in the cover of a bush at the edge of the clearing, and resigned himself to the wait. 

  
  
  
  


Four hours. 

Kurama shifted for the billionth time on his bed of pressed-down grass, lips pulling up in a snarl to make up for his inability to scowl. 

_ Four hours,  _ and he was just now sensing Kakashi’s chakra approaching. 

_ I'm going to feed him his own intestines,  _ Kurama thought.  _ Fuck what he does professionally. He made me sit in a bush for four hours. This is  _ **_personal_ ** _.  _

...Well, to be fair, Naruto’s protection was also personal, but Kurama was mostly hot air when it came to his accusations of Kakashi there. The guy was an ass, and a moron, but Kurama doubted he would be outright malicious to a child. The problem was, Kurama couldn't guarantee that anyone saw Naruto as a child, and not the demon they feared, nor the clone of his ‘uncle’ that they  _ also  _ feared. 

(Kurama sometimes wondered how many villagers would keel over of heart attacks if they found out that Kurama was actually  _ both _ their biggest fears. It gave him a good laugh, when he thought about it.)

It wouldn't take long before he could know for certain, though, because Kakashi was strolling casually into the clearing. 

“Good morning!” he called out, as though he  _ wasn’t  _ several hours late to his own meeting. 

“You’re late!” all three children yelled to him.

Kakashi’s eye crunched up, and under the mask Kurama thought he might have smiled. “Ah, a black cat crossed my path, sorry.”

Kurama twitched. Kakashi was an  _ idiot,  _ yes, but Kurama had only ever seen him sullen and serious. This was… _ different _ , to say the least.

_ What’s he planning? _

Ignoring the scowls he was getting from his students, Kakashi headed over to a stump, setting down an alarm clock on it and hitting a button. “This is set for noon,” he announced. “Your assignment…” He pulled two bells out of his pocket, dangling them from his fingers. “Is to take these from me by then!”

The gentle chime of the bells struck Kurama, and he finally remembered. Minato had told Kushina about this test maybe a dozen times, and she had always privately thought it was ridiculous - Academy students were taught independently, and rarely knew their teammates well when they got their assignments. Expecting them to work as a team instinctively was a bit much. Still, she’d appreciated the lesson and the sentiments behind it, and had done her best to encourage her husband’s love of the stupid bell test.

Kurama, on the other hand, thought it was fucking dumb.

Kakashi had proven to Kurama in the past that his priority was doing what he thought was best, even if it meant disobeying an order. That was what the Kiri mission had showed him: Kakashi trusted his own judgement above all else, which made working with him difficult. 

To have  _ Kakashi  _ doing the bell test was just absurd. If he had his way, Kakashi would raise three minions that held his word as gospel and followed his moral compass right off the edge of a cliff. The lesson was meant to be loyalty, that you should always consider the lives of your comrades a top priority, Kurama doubted that would be done well by a man who was infamous for having killed one of his own best friends.

“Those who don’t get a bell, don’t get lunch,” Kakashi continued to explain. “I’ll try you to one of those posts, and eat in front of you.” 

“There’s only two bells,” Sakura pointed out, having the keenest eye among her friends. 

“One of you will have to be tied to the post no matter what,” Kakashi said. “They fail, and they’ll be sent back to the Academy.”

All three children startled, and Kurama had to bite down on a groan. Team assignments weren’t individual - either your genin team passed, or it didn’t. Separating them out could only be done in extreme circumstances, with the permission of the Hokage. All of that was stuff he probably  _ should  _ have explained to Naruto, if only to avoid letting the kid walk into a trap like this. 

It was good motivation, though. If Naruto was scared of anything, it was losing. He’d fight like hell to not have to return to the Academy. 

“Come at me with intent to kill,” Kakashi instructed them. “You won’t get a bell otherwise.”

“That’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Sakura demanded.

“I can’t view a Konoha ninja as a target!” Ino added.

Naruto, standing between them, rocked back on his heels, nervously tugging at a loose strand of hair. “You couldn’t even dodge the eraser trap, though.”

“The weakest tend to complain the most,” Kakashi said. “Which means you’re probably the loser here, right? Oh well. I’ll count to three-...”   
Kurama perked up as he saw the casual insult hit its target, flaring up Naruto’s temper. 

The boy pulled out a kunai, and Kurama internally mourned the fact that he had no skill in subtleties he could have taught his ward, because his movements were practically telegraphed. He didn’t get far, though, only a half step toward Kakashi, before the jounin moved.

A spike of chakra marked a body flicker, which was a bit excessive for a three-step distance, but Kakashi was showboating. In an instant, Kakashi had Naruto’s hand twisted behind his head, kunai aimed down at the back of the boy’s own neck. 

“I didn’t say  _ start _ yet,” Kakashi warned. “But you did come at me with intent to kill, so I suppose you did listen. Try again, though.” He released the boy’s hand, taking a step back, and signalled the beginning of the test. “Go!” 

The children dispersed, and Kurama moved to settle back into his spot- except, just as he shifted, he caught Kakashi’s eye turned his way. 

Kurama flicked his ears back and forth, the only acknowledgement the other would get from him. Kakashi’s eye scrunched up in that bullshit smile again, and then he was looking forward once more, out to the direction where all three children had taken to hiding. 

...Wait. Not all three.

Kurama dropped his head down to the ground, chin dropping down on folded paws with exasperation. 

Naruto was standing about six feet from Kakashi, clear as day, entirely unbothered. 

“Okay, fight me head on!” the boy called. “I’m warning you, I’m strong! I’ve been training with Kurama every day for years, and he’s  _ way  _ stronger than you!” 

While true, Kurama was glad he didn’t have the ability to speak, lest he start scolding Naruto for trying to posture at the beginning of a fight. 

“Oh?” Kakashi hummed. “How often do you beat him, then?”

Naruto fumbled. “I-..!” 

Kakashi’s head tipped. “You know, I think I actually might be starting to like you,” he said, before his hand dropped into the weapon pouch at his side. “First lesson, then: taijutsu.”

Kurama sat up again, watching closely. Kakashi was referencing hand-to-hand, but reaching for a weapon…?

Kakashi’s hand reappeared from the inside of his pouch, and Kurama had to grit his teeth against an actual snarl. 

That bastard had the nerve to pull out a  _ book.  _ A disgusting one, by the looks of it. 

“What the hell?” Naruto called. “Hey! What’s with the book?”

“Hm?” Kakashi didn’t even look up from the page he’d opened to. “I’m at a tense part, and I want to know what happens. Don’t worry, the three of you won’t be much of a distraction.”

Kurama watched Naruto grit his teeth, and grinned to himself as he saw the pupils of his eyes shift ever so slightly, becoming more elliptical. 

Kurama had never taught Naruto how to access the Kyuubi’s chakra, because that would mean explaining what a jinchuuriki was. He  _ had,  _ however, explained in a roundabout way how to access some of his powers, explaining them away vaguely as a special ability the two of them shared. 

Naruto could use Kurama’s eyes to see things sharper, his ears to hear more clearly, and his sense for negative emotions, all with the ease of long practice.

That being said, Naruto was not even a genin. Being a bit more observant than normal wasn’t going to help much at all against a jounin, especially one with Kakashi’s skill. Still, it was fun to feel the shift in Kakashi, as the copy-nin took a visible interest in the change. 

Naruto charged, throwing a wild punch toward Kakashi that the man easily stepped out of the way of, his uncovered eye dropping right back down onto his book. A kick was next, ducked just as quickly, and then another punch.

That was where Naruto’s shift managed to actually help him: as Kakashi darted to dodge the punch and get behind Naruto, clearly intending not to entertain the one-sided fight any longer, Naruto shot a hand out. 

There was a faint chime as his hand just barely brushed the bells at his hip, and then Kakashi was three steps further away and looking intrigued. 

“You can follow a body flicker with those eyes?” Kakashi asked. “An interesting skill.” 

“You’re really easy to see,” Naruto told him. “You leave red everywhere.”

Kakashi blinked - hopefully, at least, since a wink wouldn’t make much sense - and Kurama’s nose twitched in amusement at Naruto’s phrasing.

Kurama always  _ felt  _ negative emotions, as a strange aura radiating from the center of every living being’s chakra system. Naruto, however, had very little skill sensing chakra, and had always described the sense as being visual. 

While Kurama felt waves of grief and bitterness coming off Kakashi like the strongest of ocean tides, Naruto was probably seeing streaks of red that painted the world. 

Kakashi was probably going to be turning that one over for a while, trying to figure out what exactly it meant. Well, he could wonder all he wanted. Kurama most certainly wasn’t gonna tell him. 

Kakashi apparently figured out that Naruto wouldn’t say anything any clearer than that, because he dropped into a squat, looking back to his book. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.”

And then he just...went back to reading.

Kurama’s tail flicked, and he looked over to the clock, trying to squint and make out the little numbers on its face. How long did they have until noon? The kids had gone to meet their sensei at five, and they’d waited four hours, meaning they had about three to go until they were done.

Kurama was pretty sure he’d go crazy watching Kakashi do nothing for three whole hours. He was already sick of it, and it’d been only a few minutes. Then again, that might have been the secondhand embarrassment of watching Naruto flail about. 

Maybe Kakashi had the right idea. If Kurama could read worth a shit, this wouldn’t have been a bad time to work through a book. 

As it was, he just resigned rested his head back down on his front paws and hoped he didn’t fall asleep.

  
  
  
  


Kurama was going to have a  _ talk  _ with Naruto about how not to walk right in to very obvious traps. 

Ino and Sakura had both started trying to go for bells, which left Naruto free to ‘plan’ an attack. This ‘plan’ consisted of him trying to steal a lunch and eat it  _ before  _ getting a bell, which ultimately resulted in him stepping in a rope trap and ending up tied to a post. 

To be fair, Naruto wasn’t the only one hopeless among his team. Sakura had fallen into a genjutsu, screaming that Ino was injured while staring blankly at a tree, and Ino had let herself be taunted right into giving away her hiding place and ruining the only advantage she had. 

Kakashi, standing in front of them, gave them a quick lecture about the value of teamwork and then left them the girls to their meal.

Ino stuck her tongue out at her teacher’s retreating back, and the second he was gone, turned to shove part of her lunch into Naruto’s mouth. 

“Eat,” she said. “Your whining is getting on my nerves! You’re lucky I don’t like most of this stuff anyway.”

“Ino!” Sakura chided. “He said-...”

“Screw him,” Ino interrupted smoothly. “I’d rather deal with him being disappointed than Uncle Kurama! Besides, he’s not even here. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Sakura stared at them for a second, before letting out a heavy sigh, and picking up some of the vegetables in her bento to shove Naruto’s way as well. “Fine, that’s fair. I hate these, so you can have them, I guess.”

Just as Naruto went to take a bite, grinning and thanking the girls for their help, another body flicker and a dramatic whirl of leaves brought Kakashi back to stand in front of them.

“You three!” he called to them. “What did I tell you?”

Sakura looked panicked for a second, and then quickly shifted to angry, glaring at him. “You said to work as a team, that’s what! I’m not dragging Naruto into a fight when he’s hungry and expecting him to keep up with us when we aren’t! Three Academy graduates against a jounin? We need all the strength we can get.” 

“Besides!” Ino added. “If at least one of us is going to fail anyway, letting Naruto have a disadvantage wouldn’t be fair! If you’re sending one of us back, send me. I’ll take the stupid exam again and come back next year, and you can bet I’ll take care of that team, too!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Naruto kicked his legs, happily going along with the enthusiasm of his team. “We’re friends, y’know? We grew up together! Sakura and Ino have been friends since they were kids, and Ino’s like a sister! It’s gonna take more than a stupid bell to make us stop caring about each other, y’know?”

All three children gave defiant grins of personal satisfaction at their sensei, and Kurama watched with interest as Kakashi actually  _ returned  _ it, the pleased look on his face even managing to show through the mask. 

“You pass,” Kakashi told them.

Kurama tipped his head, listening in. As Kakashi explained the purpose of the bell test and how exactly passing it worked, the fox wondered if Kakashi realized what he’d just taught them: true to Kurama’s character assessment of Kakashi, he’d shown that his priority was always his personal judgement, even to the point of ignoring orders.

A superior had told them, very explicitly, not to do something, and Kakashi was rewarding them for choosing to do it anyway. While the moral lesson was good in theory, the practical takeaway was….

Well. Kurama was going to have to keep an eye on them, because that was some bullshit if he’d ever seen it.

He stood, stretched, and turned, sprinting back toward the village. He needed to get home before Naruto, but more than that, he needed to speak to the Hokage.

That old man owed him a favor or two, and it was time for Kurama to cash them in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kurama, storming into the hokage's office: hey old bastard i need a Favor  
> sarutobi, pouring a drink: please dont be murder, please dont be murder, please dont be mu


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurama hates everyone in Konoha, honestly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kurama, kicking in the Hokage's door: SUP YA FUCK IM BACK AGAIN  
> Hiruzen, pouring a drink: this man is going to make me an alcoholic

The door of the Hokage’s office was supposed to be the most secure area in Konoha, and yet, Sarutobi’s guards watched on as Kurama kicked the damn door in without so much as flinching.

Which, to be fair, he did that often, but you’d think they’d at least  _ pretend  _ to be concerned. 

“Old man!” Kurama called out. “I’m here for a favor.”

Sarutobi stared at Kurama, face tense and tired, and that was when the bijuu realized the office was not actually empty. The younger Sarutobi -  _ Asuma _ , Kurama recalled - was there, along with three genin who were presumably his assigned team. Kurama was grateful that the three kids were at least three he  _ knew:  _ he could recognize Shikaku’s features in one of them, so that must have been Shikamaru, and that made the chubbier one next to him Choji. Sasuke, in contrast, was immediately recognizable through sheer virtue of the killer glare he was sending Kurama’s way. 

“Hey, Uzumaki,” Asuma greeted. “I was formally passing my genin team. Shouldn’t take too long, if you wanna hang out for a second. I’ll let you yell at my dad as soon as I’m done, promise.” 

“Didn’t he just break into the Hokage’s office?” Sasuke demanded. “That’s-...!”

“He does it like once a week,” Choji informed his teammate. “No one cares anymore. At least, that’s what my dad says.”

“You can feel his chakra from a mile off, apparently,” Shikamaru added. “No one is ever surprised.”

Kurama scowled at the casual analyzation of his habits by random children, and looked to Hiruzen again. “I’m just letting you know I’m gonna be hijacking Kakashi’s training sessions.”

Everyone in the room startled a bit at that, and Sarutobi narrowed his eyes.

“You want to take over as Naruto’s sensei?” the Hokage asked.

“Hell no,” Kurama said. “But I’m not letting him do what he wants, either. I’m gonna be hanging around during his missions. I won’t interfere unless I have to, but I’m gonna watch every move he makes.”

“Kakashi won’t like that,” Asuma said. “He’s a control freak.”

“So am I,” Kurama said, unconcerned. “And I could kick his ass with my hands tied. I’m not worried.”

“At the end of the day, Kakashi is the one who can decide whether to permit you to sit in,” Hiruzen said. “I’ll call you both in later, and we’ll see if we can work something out. Now, please let me do my job in peace?”

Kurama waved him off, heading for the door. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back, geezer.”

Sarutobi sighed heavily as the door shut behind the Kyuubi, and turned an exhausted look on Asuma and the genin. 

“Okay, what’s up?” Asuma asked. “It’s not like you to just let someone to walk all over you that, old man.”

“Kurama is…unique,” Sarutobi said. “While I am constantly at odds with his methods, his intentions are usually good. The past twelve years have shown that he can be counted on to do what is best for Konoha, even if it is for the sheer reason that this is where Naruto lives. He is our greatest protector, even as he himself openly despises the village and most of its residents.” Hiruzen steepled his fingers, considering. “I suppose I also find it hard to fault Kurama for his quick temper and harsh judgements. He has seen only the worst of humanity, as far as I am aware. I only hope that one day he realizes the good in the world is not limited to Naruto.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Asuma asked. Even though he knew this was probably not a discussion to have in front of his team, he couldn’t help chasing the rabbit just a little further, trying to pick at his father’s brain for some solid logical explanation to the man’s long leash for Uzumaki. “What if he’s just biding his time until Naruto is able to bail out with him?”

Sarutobi lifted his pipe to his mouth and chewed on the end of it for a moment, weighing his options for response.

The truth was, at least in part, that there was little Sarutobi could do about it if Kurama wanted to leave. He couldn’t truly oppose the bijuu without revealing his identity to anyone, and doing that would be dropping a match into the powder keg that was the village hidden in the leaves. Ever since Kurama unveiled the Uchiha coup that was forming under their noses, everyone was jumping at shadows, eager to hunt an enemy that may not even exist any longer. 

The village distrusted the Uchiha, the Uchiha resented the village, the shinobi kept their hands on their blades at all times and the civilians wouldn’t walk the streets at night. Konoha was a mess, and Kurama would absolutely be able to take advantage of that. 

Luckily, Sarutobi was willing to bet he  _ wouldn’t. _

“Naruto loves the village,” he said. “It has never been kind to him, but he has loved it all the same. The longer Kurama lingers, the deeper that love grows. With hope, it will be a strong enough tie to keep them here. If it isn’t...Well, there’s no sense worrying about it, yet, in any case.” He reached into his desk, retrieving a folder. “Back to the matter at hand, though. Congratulations on passing your genin exam, children. Here is your first mission.”

“Nice subject change, dad.”

Sarutobi gave a falsely innocent smile. “I've no idea what you mean.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Uzumaki-san!” 

Kurama froze mid-step, slowly turning a death glare on his approacher. 

Oblivious to the promise of murder in Kurama’s eyes, the kid running toward him kept right on rushing forward, skidding to a stop a few steps from Kurama and hunching over to catch his breath. The bijuu shifted, folding his arms and waiting for the child to get it together. 

“Uzumaki-san,” he blurted, once recovered, straightening up and fixing wide round eyes on him. “Gai-sensei asked me to see if you were available to help Tenten with her latest scrolling seals. She has set two on fire, and he is worried she will start doing so on purpose out of frustration.”

Kurama blinked. Starting a  _ fire  _ with a  _ seal  _ was a pretty extreme mistake, comical as it was to picture. She was probably going heavy-handed with elements, trying too hard to balance out her natural chakra with other affinities. 

Honestly, he wasn’t sure when he agreed to be the girl’s designated seal tutor. All he’d done was correct her lines once, and she’d been bugging him about it since. It was something to do in his downtime, at least.

“Yeah, I have time,” Kurama agreed. “At least until the old man calls me back up here. Take me to ‘em, I guess.”

  
  
  
  


“Uzumaki!” Gai greeted, loud and boisterous as always, and Kurama resisted the urge to punch him, just like every other time they met. “I thank you for your cooperation! Tenten is making such great progress in sealing, and I am afraid I know little of the subject. Your help is very appreciated.”

Kurama dragged his eyes over the training ground they were in, before settling them on Gai. “Where’s the brat?”

Gai faltered for the tiniest fraction of a second, before turning to call out for his student.

A moment later, two blurs flickered into being in front of him: Tenten, grinning and looking as eager to learn as ever, and the Hyuuga branch bastard that was more negative emotion than chakra at all times. Kurama radiated hatred and anger with every fiber of his being, and even he thought the kid needed to chill out, at least a little. 

“Uzumaki-sensei!” Tenten greeted. “Can you help me figure out what I’m doing wrong in these seals? I keep trying to-...”

“You’re overcorrecting,” Kurama said. “It’s pretty common, actually. Dial back the fire signs in the seal matrix, and you should get a little less spontaneous combustion.”

Tenten groaned. “I thought it might be that! I just can’t figure out how to balance it otherwise. I’m trying seal wind, in case i need to dispel anything in the air - like poisonous gas, or something - but it’s next to impossible.”

Kurama rolled his eyes. “No such thing, brat. Give it over, I’ll take a look.”

As he looked over her drafts, he could feel four sets of eyes on him, and it made his skin crawl. 

Gai’s team gave him the creeps, honestly. It didn’t help that the man himself seemed to think Kurama was actually a very sweet and caring person underneath his bluster, and kept trying to expose that.

One day, Kurama was probably going to gut him. 

Hopefully  _ after  _ Tenten figured out seals, though, because her experiments were actually pretty interesting.

  
  
  
  
  


Instead of a runner from the Hokage’s office, one of Kakashi’s summons came to fetch him (no pun intended) for their meeting. Which was a pretty poor choice on Kakashi’s part, really, because Kurama did not react well to pets.

The thing was, Kurama was a being of condensed chakra. He didn’t have a very solid chakra system to sense or a very distinct human smell. Sensor types usually wrote off him registering as unusual to them as a bloodline thing, since humans tended to rely more on their eyes than they probably should, but animals...

Animals noticed something wrong about him immediately, and tended not to like it. Cats tended to puff up and hiss when he got near, and dogs tended to growl and sniff at him. Other animals just straight up ran away.

Not that people really had much better reactions, honestly.

The dog Kakashi sent was clearly no exception to the rule, probably even extra sensitive to the oddness based on his status as a summons. When it approached, the muscles of its shoulders went taut and its lips pulled back in the beginnings of a snarl. 

“You  _ do  _ smell weird,” the dog said, and Kurama disliked the implication that someone else, maybe even  _ Kakashi,  _ had  _ smelled  _ him. “Boss is in the Hokage’s office. They sent me to get you.”

“Guruko!” Gai greeted the dog. “It is good to see you again.”

The dog tipped his head sideways, eyeing Gai appraisingly. “You two are friends?” 

“ _ Fuck _ no,” Kurama answered, at the same time Gai let out a happy “Of course!”

There was a beat of silence.

“Uzumaki helps Tenten with sealing lessons,” Gai explained, apparently opting to ignore Kurama’s input. “She has learned a lot from him!”

Kurama ignored the temptation to correct that he really didn’t  _ help  _ with anything, seeing as that would imply Gai had any part at all in the teaching. More than that, it was barely even teaching - more just Kurama sweeping in behind Tenten to replace a couple of lines and then letting her figure out what changed and why on her own. 

He wasn’t a teacher. That’s why Naruto still had trouble with basics, even though Kurama should have been able to easily help him with them. He had no concept of a learning curve: everything he knew, he just  _ knew.  _ The only things he’d  _ learned  _ had been slowly absorbed through years of watching through his jinchuuriki’s eyes, and considering that was where he learned to  _ read… _

Well. He wasn’t great at the learning process, was the point. 

“The old man is ready to talk to me now, right?” Kurama pressed. “Let’s go, then. I want this settled as soon as possible.” To Gai, he added, “Try not to let the girl blow anything up. Or, if she does, let it be that little Hyuuga shit. He creeps me out.”

Gai looked a bit like he was about to lecture Kurama about the value of human life or some similar bullshit, so the fox didn’t give him time, instead calling a body flicker to head back to the Hokage’s office.

“Kurama,” Sarutobi greeted, without even looking up from whatever paperwork he was reading through. “I brought Kakashi to speak with you, as requested.”

Kakashi gave a small, almost mocking wave, clearly of the opinion that his time was being wasted.

Kurama bared his teeth at the man. “Good. I’m hijacking your training.”

Kakashi’s visible eye gave a very slow blink. “Pardon?”

“I don’t trust you,” Kurama said. “I’d say I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, but I could probably chuck you to Kiri if I put my mind to it, and I wouldn’t trust you two steps out of this office. You’re a sketchy bastard. If you’re in charge of Naruto, I’m making sure you don’t abuse that.”

“Ah,” Kakashi said. “You’re one of those kind of parents, then?”

Kurama stiffened. “I’m  _ what?”  _

“You hover,” Kakashi said. “You don’t let your children grow up. Naruto is going to be a shinobi, he can’t be babied by you forever.”

Kurama wondered if Kakashi knew how close to death he was, with the red starting to tinge the edges of the fox’s vision.

“For your information, asshole,” Kurama said, “I’m not  _ any  _ kind of parent. I’m a guardian. It’s different. His  _ parents  _ are fucking  _ dead  _ and because of that nobody feels any need to be actually  _ decent  _ to the kid. The only reason people don’t spit at his feet as he walks by is because they know I’d  _ shred _ them. And you? You’re famous for not giving a fuck about  _ anybody,  _ and for being a manipulative little bastard. Forgive me if I don’t see putting a young boy with a lot of power and not a lot of experience with humanity in the hands of someone who might be out to make him a weapon.”

“As opposed to what?” Kakashi asked. “All shinobi are weapons. It’s their purpose.”

Kurama’s skin tingled with the urge to drop his veil, to let Kakashi see the monster he held back all the time, so as to make it clear he wasn’t leaving room for argument. Instead, though, he dug his nails into his own palm and let them sharpen into claws, using them as a grounding point to keep from trying to rip the copy-nin’s throat out. 

“Shinobi act as weapons by choice,” Kurama said. “They take orders and follow them because they believe in the cause they’re fighting for. Naruto has more blind loyalty to Konoha than he needs already - I want him choosing every battle he goes into because he believes in what it will result in. He’s not an attack dog, he’s a  _ kid.”  _

“He’s a ninja,” Kakashi corrected. “And it’s odd to hear you defend fighting for what you believe in, when you are a well known malcontent in Konoha.”

Kurama scoffed. “I fight for my own reasons, too,” he said. “They just have nothing to do with the fantasy of world peace or any ties to this garbage fire of a village. Ask anyone, and you’ll get the same answer.  I’m here for  _ Naruto _ .”

“Then maybe this isn’t about Naruto’s loyalties at all,” Kakashi suggested. “If he is kept loyal to the village, you won’t ever be able to leave, will you?”

Kurama was going to fucking murder this guy.

“Kakashi,” Sarutobi interrupted, finally cutting in. “I know the full extent of Kurama’s loyalties, as well as their limits. Those are not in question, as far as I am concerned. The question at hand is whether you will permit Kurama to observe your missions as a secondary tutor.”

It was hard to judge expressions based on a single eye, but Kurama could feel the turmoil spinning around in the man in front of him.

“On one condition,” Kakashi said. “You can’t interfere with their missions directly. Advise them, tell them how to complete objectives, but do not do it for them. That’s my compromise.”

“Done,” Kurama said. “I won’t need to hand-hold the brats, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Sarutobi breathed, and Kurama suspected he was grateful to have gotten through the entire exchange without blood being shed. “With that settled, you two should prepare. Your team gets its first assignment tomorrow.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gai is under the impression that Kurama is a genuinely nice guy with a tsundere complex and Kurama has yet to ruin it  
> Kakashi is under the impression Kurama is a helicopter mom with a Complex™ and he's not really wrong tbqh


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mission, start!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter full of sarutobi internally begging for kurama to shut the hell up

Waking up early - or at all, really - was possibly the worst part of being human. 

Foxes tended to sleep during the day, ideally, and Kurama was not a particularly big fan of being awake in the first place. 

He’d spent so long sleeping in the back of his jinchuuriki’s minds, where being awake for more than an hour at a time had been a struggle. Luckily, he’d had Naruto’s developmental years to adjust, because babies  _ also  _ spent most of their time sleeping, and it was way easier to sync up to spikes in Naruto’s chakra than to the rising and setting of the sun or any other arbitrary time marker. 

Now, though, Naruto was twelve, and was pretty much pinging off the walls at all times. Getting the kid to sleep was next to impossible, which meant that Kurama couldn’t use him as a good gauge for when rest was appropriate. Instead, Kurama tended to just sleep whenever he wasn’t needed, and suffer consciousness the rest of the time as necessary. 

Most of the shinobi in the village gave him a wide berth, and the ones brave enough to agree to go fetch him for Sarutobi were usually clever enough to do so within the small window of time Kurama was guaranteed to be awake in order to get Naruto up and off to class. 

If Kurama was going to be helping Kakashi with Team 7, though, he’d have to start waking up early  _ every day  _ so they could meet for missions. 

He hoped Naruto appreciated the massive sacrifice he was making for the kid. At least he’d have the comfort of the knowledge that Kakashi was a notorious flake and would probably give up on morning meetings as soon as he could get away with it. 

Or, at least, Kurama  _ thought  _ that would happen. 

“Kurama!” Ino greeted, when he and Naruto walked up. “You came with, today?”   
“That’s what I wanted to tell you guys,” he said, catching all three’s attention. “I’m gonna be tailing you guys for a while. Make sure you don’t drive Hatake any crazier than he already is.”

“Really?” Sakura asked, while Naruto and Ino celebrated. “You’re gonna be our sensei, too?”

“Fuck that,” Kurama replied. “I’m no teacher. I’m just your teacher’s babysitter.”

The conversation derailed as Naruto dragged the girls into a conversation about... _ something _ (Kurama wasn’t able to follow the excited babbling close enough to understand), and the fox hopped up to sit on the railing of the bridge, biding his time until Kakashi showed up.

And…they waited.

And waited.

And…

“I’m going to murder him,” Kurama announced. “He forgot his own fucking team meeting? On day one?”   
“Maybe we got the time wrong?” Sakura suggested. “Or he got delayed by something important? It’s only been twenty minutes, that’s not  _ too  _ bad…”

“He’s not coming for at least another hour,” Kurama said. “He does this. He’s  _ famous  _ for it. He never shows up to  _ anything  _ on time.”

“Has he been late to a meeting with you before, Kurama?” Ino asked.

Kurama hesitated. “...No. But I was  _ hoping  _ that was because he fucking  _ knew better,  _ and not just luck of the draw.”

“Maybe he forgot you were here!” Naruto laughed out. “He did seem kind of dumb!”

“Maa, Naruto,” Kakashi’s voice came from over Kurama’s shoulder, making the bijuu tense up. “That’s rude.”

Kurama rounded on the man, tense and irritated - doubly so because he’d been so distracted with his own anger that he hadn’t even noticed Kakashi approach. “Showing up within the first hour past an appointment time? That must be a record for you.”

Kakashi’s eye crinkled up, a sign of another annoying-ass smile, and Kurama was tempted to bare his teeth in response.  “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Sure you don’t, you-...”

“Kakashi-sensei!” Ino interrupted, stepping forward and calling the man’s attention to her. “What’s our first mission?”

With only one eye visible, it was hard to tell, but it looked like Kakashi’s smile turned sadistic. “We’ve been given the job of retrieving the daimyo's wife’s cat, Tora.” 

Oh,  _ shit.  _ Kurama had forgotten, in his panic to keep Naruto out of Kakashi’s hands, what exactly a genin team was made to do. 

He knew he wouldn’t be doing anything interesting, but...stalking those four while they chased down a  _ cat?  _ He was going to go crazy.

Judging by the sly look Kakashi was giving him, the man knew that, too.

_ So that’s why he agreed,  _ Kurama thought.  _ He’s assuming I won’t stick around long. _

Well, he could suck it up. Kurama could be patient when he needed to be. He’d hang around as long as it took.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Upon further review, Kurama may have been a bit hasty in deciding to supervise this mission. 

“Wow, Uncle Kurama,” Ino said, using her favorite title just to emphasize what a  _ brat  _ she was. “This cat really doesn’t like you.” 

Tora had been puffed up, claws out, the entire time they’d had her. She’d already clawed several deep cuts into the arms of all three genin, causing her to be given a rotating schedule of who held her. 

(Naruto, after the second shift of holding the cat, was promptly banned from touching it, because he nearly dropped her on four separate occasions. It probably didn’t help that Kurama had  _ growled _ at the cat when it took a particularly large chunk of skin off Naruto’s arm, though.) 

Currently, Tora had her claws sunk into Ino’s shoulder, her hackles raised, and was giving Kurama a look that suggested she’d rip his throat out if she were only a tiny bit larger. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kurama muttered. He checked to make sure Kakashi was still leading the group on their walk back to the Hokage’s office, his back to Kurama, and then leaned down to reach eye-level with the cat. He shoved out a hand, which Tora hissed at, and flared his chakra around it lightly, letting her feel it. 

Animals hated him because he felt  _ wrong,  _ too much repressed natural chakra crammed down into a human-like container. With the chakra strong enough to sense properly, the cat relaxed slightly, and started sniffing curiously at his fingers - probably trying to smell  _ fox  _ on him, instead of whatever this body smelled like. 

“Whoa,” Ino muttured. “She’s totally calm, now. What’d you do?”

“Nothing,” Kurama said. At her skeptical look, her sneered at her. “It’s a bloodline thing, okay? She just doesn’t trust me because I smell weird. I let her get a closer look at me and now she’s less pissed off.”

“Does that mean  _ you  _ can carry her?”

“Fuck no,” Kurama said. “I have explicit instructions not to help on your missions, at all, ever. You’re on your own, sunshine.” 

“You can’t help?” Naruto chimed in. “That sucks! I was hoping we’d have two senseis, and it’d be super cool, cause we’d be the strongest team.”

“Look at who is on your team, dumbass,” Kurama told him. “You can be the strongest team anyway, easy. Especially if you listen to the girls before you make any moves.”

Naruto scrunched up his nose. “But I like doing stuff my own way, y’know? Talking stuff out just wastes time.”

Privately, Kurama agreed. However, Naruto was human, and  _ twelve _ . He needed to be a little bit more reserved than Kurama usually was. 

“Working together as a team is vital,” Kakashi chimed in. “No shinobi is stronger alone.”

Kurama opened his mouth to argue that, and then clicked it back shut, deciding it was probably better to let the children learn a lesson that would help them than to try and defend his own ideals. 

“Uncle Kurama, you usually run missions alone, don’t you?” Ino asked. 

Well, there went that. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’m a special case.”

“How?” Sakura, ever curious, asked him. “Wouldn’t you be stronger with a team, too?”

Kakashi made no motion to even acknowledge the turn the conversation had taken, which told Kurama he was probably  _ also  _ interested in the answer. 

Well, fuck him. The answer wasn’t anything they didn’t already know. “I don’t cooperate well,” he told the girls. “I can tolerate a few teammates on low-risk missions, but if I need to do something important, I don’t have time to be worried about whoever’s with me. I’d rather get my shit done and get out.” He smirked, adding slyly, “It helps that even the most elite jounin in Konoha are scared shitless of being left alone with me.”

Naruto laughed. “You’re so cool, Pop! You’re so strong. I guess that’s because-...?”

“The bloodline thing,” Kurama interrupted. At Naruto’s startled glance, he narrowed his eyes in a warning. “Keep your mouth shut, brat. The less we say about that shit, the better.”

“You have a bloodline limit?” Kakashi probed. “I wasn’t awake the Uzumaki clan-...”

“They  _ don’t,”  _ Kurama interrupted. “Or, they  _ didn’t.  _ They’re fucking dead, now.”

Kakashi winced, probably taking Kurama’s cold and harsh tone as a petty grief for his lost ‘family.’ Mainly, Kurama was just irritated that Kakashi was trying to piece together his life story out of scraps of information Naruto accidentally dropped. That nosy bastard needed to mind his own business. 

“My... _ father _ ,” Kurama said, unable to keep the slightly sarcastic tone from coming out at that word, because he still thought his fake backstory was stupid. “His whole family had a totally unique chakra system. Putting that kind of intense power into an Uzumaki baby was apparently the kind of stupid that everyone was perfectly happy to go along with, until it  _ backfired  _ because children aren’t fucking _ experiments,  _ and if Sarutobi doesn’t get it through his head that he’s about to do the same shit with Naruto-...!”   
“Okay!” Kakashi interrupted, voice falsely cheerful. “I see I stepped on a nerve, so I’m going to go ahead and apologize now. Please don’t threaten the Hokage when we’re right in front of his office. Someone might take you seriously.”

Kurama rolled his eyes. “They  _ should _ ,” he muttered, but didn’t press any further. His rant had probably stirred up questions with Kakashi, and he didn’t have answers. Still, better him think  Kurama was some sort of genetic experiment gone rogue than the truth. Instead of pressing further, he looked up, gauging just how close ‘right in front’ of the Hokage’s office was in Kakashi’s mind. 

Turned out, pretty damn close. They were practically at his doorstep. 

“Thank fuck,” Kurama breathed, and wasted no time, body flickering ahead to stop just outside Sarutobi’s door and throw it open. “We’re back, you old creep.”

Sarutobi’s exasperated sigh greeted him, but Kurama’s attention was caught by the woman standing off to the side, looking rather offended at his entrance. 

“Madam Shijimi,” Sarutobi said. “This is Kurama Uzumaki. He is an assigned shadow of Team 7, who was given your task.”

“Where’s the rest of them?” the woman asked. “Is my Tora-baby okay?”

“That cat is a menace,” Kurama informed her. “But it’s fine. Minus the bloodthirst, anyways.”

Sarutobi let out a low breath through his nose, sounding like he was just barely repressing the urge to yell at Kurama, which had him scrambling to try and analyze what he’d said that was more annoying than his usual personality. 

_ Oh, fuck.  _

Kakashi had said the cat belonged to the daimyo’s wife, hadn’t he?

“Hokage-sama,” Kakashi greeted, entering the room behind him, his team in tow. Kurama heard his footsteps falter in the doorway, and imagined the man was probably taking in the sight of an  _ extremely  _ offended-looking Madam Shijimi gaping at Kurama. “Ah. So that’s where you went, Uzumaki-san.”

Kurama turned a glare on Kakashi. “Where’d you think I went? Just because I’m sick of being around you doesn’t mean I forgot what I was here for. Turn in your mission report.”

Ino, still holding the cat, approached Shijimi with all the bubbly energy of a girl proud of her accomplishments, and extended the desperately squirming cat back to its terrible owner to be squeezed close against the woman’s chest. Kurama winced, feeling bad for it, because all he could picture was someone trying to crowd Matatabi like that and getting split in half for the audacity. 

He still hated that damn cat, though, and so he didn’t say a word, just letting Tora suffer the affection of her crazy owner on her own. As the daimyo’s wife left the room, he resisted the urge to make a face at the cat trying to climb over her shoulder to escape. 

If she wanted help, she should have thought about that  _ before  _ ripping a chunk out of Naruto’s forearm. 

Kakashi approached the Hokage’s desk, going about with the formal process of completing a mission, and Kurama took the opportunity to approach Iruka, leaning against the wall behind Sarutobi.

“What’s the formal punishment for killing a jounin?” Kurama asked. “Just curious.”

“No,” Iruka told him. “I’m not even going to humor you. You can deal with Kakashi without violence, or you can let Naruto be part of a genin team without you hovering. Pick  _ one.”  _

Kurama huffed. “If I end up doing too many D-ranks, I’m not going to be able to promise much, there.”

Iruka shook his head, amused, and turned to Sarutobi. “What  _ is  _ their next mission?” he asked.

Sarutobi picked up a stack of mission files, and thumbed through them, probably sorting out all the D-ranks that required enough physical activity to keep Naruto entertained and Kurama from killing someone. “Let’s see...the chief counsellor needs a babysitter for his three-year-old...”

“Pass,” Kurama said. “I hate kids.”

Sarutobi raised his eyes off the paper, looking slowly between Kurama and the three children next to him, as though to ask  _ Are you sure?  _

Kurama bared his teeth at the old man. 

“Right,” Sarutobi sighed. “We have...several repair requests around the village, general maintenance, a few lost items-...”

“Boring!” Naruto interrupted, dropping down to sit on the floor. “I want a real mission! Something like Pop gets to do - the cool, dangerous stuff!”

Kurama sighed heavily. “Kid, they’re not going to give you S-ranks because you pouted,” he told him. Then, to Sarutobi, he added, “But genin teams can take C-ranks, right? This one has three 12-year-old powerhouses and two S-rank jounin on it. Give us something that makes me want to die less,  _ please _ .”

Whether it was fear that Kurama would  _ actually  _ gut someone, or the sheer novelty of the fact that Kurama had said ‘please,’ Sarutobi sat his stack of D-rank files aside and grabbed another stack out of his desk drawer. 

He pulled the top sheet off, looking at it, and then passed it across the desk to Kakashi.

“A bridge builder is headed to the Land of Waves to work on a project, and needs an escort,” Sarutobi told them. “As it was described, it is a lower-end C-rank mission. If you are going to be insistent on skipping the standard D-rank entry missions, that’s a good enough place to start.” He looked to Kurama, eyes narrowed. “I’ll remind you that you are under agreement not to intervene in their work, so remember that just because you’re there doesn’t mean you can do the mission for them. If they’re needed, let them do their own work. Alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Kurama waved him off. “Just let us get started already.”

Sarutobi turned to Iruka, who nodded and headed to the door without a single word needing to be spoken. He headed out into the hall, and returned a moment later, with a man trailing after him.

The man was stumbling slightly, and Kurama could smell the alcohol on him from across the room. “ _ Kids?”  _ he blurted out, seeing the people in the room. “Who’re these kids? These aren’t my guards, right?”   
Deep under the fog of liquor, Kurama’s emotional sense caught the ping of something dark. Not anger, not ill intent, but…

...Guilt?

Kurama had a bad feeling about this.

Kakashi stepped in, introducing himself and his team (and Kurama), but Kurama said nothing, choosing to hang back silently and keep an eye on their new charge.

This guy was up to something, hiding something, and Kurama didn’t like it. Still, he was certain it was nothing they couldn’t handle - even without him being allowed to interfere, Kakashi was S-ranked, too. They’d be fine.

...Hopefully.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> land of waves arc is a go! this is where stuff starts really diverging, so strap in


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurama may have been a bit hasty in accepting this assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops im alive lmao

Kurama and Naruto packed bags for an away mission and went to meet back up with the rest of the team at the gate, only for the former to slow to a stop the second the others were in sight, just distant specks on the horizon for Naruto’s less keen eyes.

“What is it?” Naruto asked, bouncing between his feet. “What’s going on?”

Kurama growled low in his throat. “That old fuck,” he bit out. “He sent his kid.”

Naruto faltered, tipping his head. “...Uh, who…?”

“Sarutobi,” Kurama filled in, waving toward the gate. “Fucking Asuma is over there, with his brat squad.” 

“Oh,” Naruto murmured, sobering quickly. 

Kurama went on alert, narrowing his eyes at his charge. “What’s with that face, kid?”

“Nothing!” Naruto said, quickly. “It’s just.  _ Sasuke’s _ on that team, right?”

Kurama bristled. “Did that little shit-…?”

“No, no, he didn’t do anything!” Naruto assured him. “I just don’t like him, that’s all.” Much quieter, he added, “The last time I saw him was during the team assignments, when…”

Kurama watched the kid blanch, and decided that for the sake of the Uchiha clan’s survival, he probably shouldn’t ask. Instead, he started forward again, stalking purposely toward the gathered genin and their two respective babysitters.

“Asuma,” Kurama greeted, more of a harsh bite than a warm welcome. 

Before he could get anything further out, the Uchiha brat spoke up, voice tense and heavily annoyed. “ _ You’re _ on our mission?”

Kurama narrowed his eyes at the kid. “It’s  _ Hatake’s _ mission, actually, but yeah. I am. If you have a problem with that, your whole team is welcome to fuck off.”

“I wish,” the kid beside him, Shikaku’s son, drawled out. “This sounds like a pain.”

“No can do, Uzumaki,” Asuma finally spoke up. “A C-rank this early on in a genin team’s career isn’t something that happens normally, so we’re doubling up.”

“Meaning your dad would rather I not be allowed to walk across territory borders without supervision,” Kurama translated. “Wave Country doesn’t even have shinobi, who does he think I’m gonna piss off?”

“Kakashi, maybe?” Asuma suggested. 

“Very likely,” Kakashi said. 

Asuma turned to him, quirking an eyebrow. “That that’s what he was thinking, or that Uzumaki’ll piss you off?”

“Both.”

Kurama scowled at the both of them. “Let’s just get moving,” he snapped. “The sooner this is done, the sooner I can get away from you two.” 

There was anger and annoyance in the air, and Kurama couldn’t tell who it even belonged to. It could have been anyone’s. Maybe it was his own. 

Asuma directed his team to take up positions at strategic points around their charge, already taking the mission seriously, while Kakashi…

What the fuck was Kakashi doing?

The man had his hands in his pockets, and his head tipped back, visible eye closed like he was basking in the sunlight. 

Or maybe praying for strength. 

Kurama was about to yell at him, less because he was doing anything wrong and more because he was still annoyed at having to be awake, when he heard the bridge builder start muttering. 

“I can’t believe this is my guard. Six  _ kids.”  _

“Hey, asshole,” Kurama snapped, watching the man start, apparently having thought he spoke quietly enough not to be heard. Kurama had fox ears, though, and the guy would have to try a lot harder for him to miss it. “Your mission request said you wanted someone to hold your hand on the way to the bridge site. If there’s any reason you  _ shouldn’t  _ be escorted by kids, feel free to speak up, so this can be someone else’s fuckin’ problem.”

“Uzumaki,” Asuma said, sounding exasperated. “Didn’t you  _ ask  _ for this mission?”

“I asked for  _ a  _ mission,” Kurama corrected. “Don’t get me wrong, if it’s this or D-ranks, by all means, give me all the annoying drunkard civilians who can’t find their own way home. I’m gonna be bored as fuck either way, but at least this doesn’t involve any damn cats.”

“We had to catch a cat,” Naruto informed Shikamaru and Choji, in a tone of voice he probably thought was sly. “It really didn’t like Kurama.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Shikamaru said, voice entirely flat.

What a  _ brat.  _

The bickering was a distraction, but only for a moment, before a heavy wave of guilt and self-hatred smashed into him, rolling off the bridge builder like heavy rain off a roof. 

Kurama  _ really  _ didn’t like the feel of this guy.

He’d just have to keep an eye on things, he supposed. 

  
  
  
  


About an hour out of the village, Kurama stepped in a puddle. 

“Ugh,” he grunted, shaking the water off of his foot. “Oh, gross, has it been raining? Is it going to rain  _ again?”  _

Kakashi made a small, noncommittal hum. “Who knows?”

Kurama narrowed his eyes at the puddle.

Come to think of it, they weren’t very far from Konoha at all. If it had rained here, it should have also rained there, shouldn’t it?

Which meant….

“Shit!”

Kurama hopped back a step as the puddle rippled, a Kiri-nin launching from its surface to attack him. 

Kurama went to respond, before Kakashi’s shout stopped him.

“Stay out of it, Uzumaki.”

Kurama grit his teeth, but complied, leading the Kiri-nin backwards as he dodged and luring them closer to Asuma, who then moved to take him down. When Kurama looked to Kakashi, he’d already dispatched of a second Kiri-nin, securing a very neat victory from the little scrap. 

“Alright,” Kurama said, rounding on Tazuna. “Explain.”

“Not here,” Tazuna said, weakly. “Somewhere safer.”

Kurama wanted to tell him where to shove it, but Kakashi intervened first, agreeing to his terms.

Kurama was gonna kill someone by the end of this. 

  
  
  
  
  


In the end, they stuck with the mission.

Kurama was very,  _ very _ unhappy about it, but Asuma and Kakashi both agreed to complete the escort, apparently confident that the three adults (or, well, two, since Kurama was banned from participation) could handle it. 

Of course, they could also have been doing it just to spite Kurama, in which case he was going to gut them and take their bodies to Sarutobi’s door like a housecat delivering a hunt. 

He was annoyed to the point of honest anger, and it was actually confusing him. It was obnoxious, yes, but he got something mildly entertaining to do  _ and  _ had the opportunity to observe Kakashi in a fight without the red haze of anger warping his vision. He really had no reason to be mad, at least any more than usual. 

It took him awhile to realize what was going on, and when he did, he stopped walking abruptly. 

“Uzumaki?” Asuma called back to him. “What’s…?”

The anger that was pressing in on Kurama wasn’t his own.

They were being followed.

“Get down!” Kakashi shouted. 

Kurama dropped to the ground just in time for a sword to sail over his head. In one smooth motion, he caught the wrist of the attacker, picking him up and using his momentum to throw him to the side.

The man recovered quickly, hitting the ground in a roll and stopping a few feet away, grinning at them behind a mask of bandages. 

“You’re quick,” he said. “I don’t know you, but…” His eyes shifted to Asuma, then Kakashi. “You’re Sarutobi of the Guardian Ninja, and you’re Copy-Nin Kakashi...right?” He tipped his head, looking to Tazuna. “How’d you afford these heavy-hitters, old man?”

Kurama didn’t give him a chance to answer, instead looking to Asuma. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

“If I’m correct,” Asuma said, “he’s-...”

“Momochi Zabuza,” Kakashi filled in. “An S-rank missing nin from Kiri.” 

“Goddamn Kiri again,” Kurama spat. “What is it with you and fucking Kiri? Does everyone from that village hate you?”

“It’s mutual,” Kakashi replied jovily, before reaching up, pushing up his headband.

A moment later, his Sharingan eye opened. 

Kurama took a step back, gritting his teeth. He’d known, distantly, that Kakashi  _ had  _ a Sharingan, but he’d only ever seen it once, and that was when he was using it to fuck up Kurama’s intel mission by killing his targets. 

He  _ hated  _ that fucking eye. 

“Uh oh,” Zabuza called, voice still sounding like he was joking. “You’re getting serious. I guess that means I need to, too.”

That was all the warning they got, before his hands came together, summoning a thick mist to cloud the air around them. 

“Sakura, Ino, Naruto,” Kakashi called. “Manji Formation. Protect Tazuna.” 

“You three, too,” Asuma told his own team. 

“Uzumaki,” Kakashi said. “You’re blacklisted, remember that. Stay by the kids and don’t interfere.”

Kurama scowled, backing up to stand at Tazuna’s back.

“For your sake,” he told the bridge builder in a low growl, “You’d better hope this doesn’t get bad enough for me to get involved, because there’s no telling if I’d stop before I got to  _ you,  _ too.”

Tazuna’s harsh swallow was somewhat satisfying. 

There was harsh breathing behind him, and Kurama looked to see the Uchiha kid struggling for air, wide eyes locked on the men in front of them.

“Relax,” Kurama said, ignoring the jolt it sent through Sasuke, addressing all the kids together at once. “It’s one asshole with a sword. If  _ one  _ of them couldn’t handle this, they’re a fucking embarrassment.”

“Any enemy can be enough to overpower a shinobi,” Ino recited. 

“The unsaid part of that proverb is, ‘if they’re a waste of space.’”

Sakura gave him an unimpressed look. “I really don’t think it is.”

They were interrupted by the sword cutting through the mist, Kakashi dodging it by a hair. They danced through the fog for a moment, trading blows that neither managed to actually land, locked in almost perfectly even combat. Asuma, meanwhile, got pounced on by his own version of Zabuza - clones, then. 

“Where’s the real one, Kakashi?” Asuma called, as he evaded the attacks. 

It wasn’t Kakashi who answered, though. 

“In the water!” Naruto called. Kurama looked down, shocked, to see Naruto’s Kyuubi eyes activated, red irises and slit pupils trained on an unseen foe.

Of course. Kurama felt rage boiling under that man’s skin, but Naruto’s sense was visual. He could probably see it clear as day, unhindered by the fog. 

Asuma managed to get a grip on his clone’s wrist, chucking it toward the lake in the same manner Kurama had done the original earlier, listening to the  _ splash  _ as the water clone popped. 

“I thought Hatake was the Copy-Nin,” Kurama muttered. 

He was, quite predictably, ignored.

As they watched, Kakashi finished off his own clone, and he and Asuma rushed the lake as a team, Asuma weaving signs for a jutsu to disperse the mist as they went. 

The fog lifted just in time for them to watch Zabuza falter, stumble, and drop to his knees in the water.

Asuma and Kakashi both skidded to a stop, following the path of the senbon sticking out of the back of Zabuza’s neck to look up into a tree, where a small... _ person,  _ gender unclear, was standing. 

“Thank you for the assistance,” they called down. “I’ll be taking him, now.”

They flickered down to the water, scooped Zabuza up, and flickered away without another word, leaving the others gaping after him.

“A hunter-nin?” Asuma guessed. “We probably just made their day.”

“Great,” Kurama said, sarcastically. “A Kiri-nin just stumbled into a promotion because of you two. Are you proud of yourselves?”

“Are you  _ ever  _ any less of an asshole?” Asuma asked.

“He gets worse,” Kakashi informed him.

Kurama shot them both a rude gesture, and with that, they set out again, heading for Tazuna’s house.

Along the way, Kurama kept his chakra reaching out in tendrils, keeping alert for another ambush. 

Something told him their fight wasn’t even close to over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we get to have   
> T R E E C L I M B I N G L E S S O N S  
> and then Angst  
> and then gay shit  
> also just. a reminder. the kiss absolutely still happened even if sasuke and naruto are not on the same team so. the embarrassment at the beginning was naruto remembering that the last time he saw sasuke, he fuckin smooched him in front of god and everybody, and sasuke still doesnt know he was pushed


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurama, Naruto, and Sasuke get left by themselves, and somehow no one dies. Miracles do happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's play "how long has this been sitting in christian's drafts"  
> answer: im pretty sure i started writing it the same day i posted the last chapter...like 6 months ago. rip  
> im trash but thanks for putting up with me, heres some family content

“So,” Asuma said, stretching his legs out under the table as Kakashi took the seat across from him, their students filing into a little circle around them. “What are the chances Zabuza is actually dead?”

“Wait, what?” Kurama faltered. “He’s not dead?”

“You couldn’t tell?” Kakashi asked. “He was hit in the neck with regular senbon. A healthy shinobi wouldn’t be taken down by that.”

Kurama blinked at them.

“You really don’t know that?” Asuma asked, sounding bewildered. 

And, the thing was, Kurama  _ didn’t.  _ His knowledge of human anatomy was rather basic, and he tended to default to overkill when taking down an opponent. Killing someone with minimal interference wasn’t something he knew how to do, so he didn’t actually know how someone would go about doing that. 

“Well, we can worry about that later,” Kakashi said. “In the meantime, I think we should probably make sure you guys are as prepared as you can be, in case he comes back.”

“Oh, cool!” Naruto cried, hopping between his feet in anticipation. “Are we gonna get special training? Are you gonna teach us how to fight?”

“Come with me,” their teacher said, pushing off the table to stand. “Let’s go out to the woods. I have an idea for something to show you.”

  
  
  
  
  


Kakashi explained the basics of the tree climbing exercise, and Kurama watched the grin spread on Naruto’s face as he realized he was being taught something he already knew.

Granted, he wasn’t great at it, but at least he had a distinct advantage.

It was highly satisfying to watch Sasuke straighten up in offense when Sakura and Ino both reached the tops of their trees, and Naruto managed to make it almost the same height before he lost momentum and fell back down. 

“I see you three are pretty good at this,” Kakashi said. “I suppose you’ve already been taught chakra control to some degree.”

“How did you do that?” Sasuke demanded, when Ino dropped back down to the ground.

Ino fluttered her lashes in response. “I could show you, if you want…?”

A moment later, Sakura dropped down next to her, nearly tackling her friend. “Or I could! I’m better at it.”

Naruto huffed, offended. “Why do they want to teach stupid  _ Sasuke _ so bad?”

“I’m just surprised his brother hasn’t taught him already,” Kurama replied. 

Sasuke apparently heard that, because he immediately rounded on Kurama. “My brother doesn’t teach me! I learn on my own.”

“Uh huh,” Kurama hummed, unimpressed, before looking to Sasuke’s teammates. “You two know this, too, don’t you?”

Shikamaru didn’t reply, just spun around and started a lazy walk up the side of one of the trees. 

“We do,” Choji confirmed. “...Mostly. I have a little bit of trouble trying to make turns while climbing, but going straight up is easy.”

Kurama looked to Sasuke, who scowled, before sprinting for a tree, running up the side.

For a first attempt, he managed to get pretty high, before a surge of chakra bore into the side of the tree and sent him springing back. 

Naruto looked like he wanted to crack a joke at the other’s expense, so Kurama nudged him with his foot. 

“You’re not much better,” he reminded Naruto. “How many times can you climb that tree before you wear yourself out?”

Naruto scowled at the reminder.

“An Uzumaki getting chakra exhaustion?” Kakashi asked, curious. “Not something I thought was even possible.”

“He can’t keep chakra in just his feet,” Kurama said. “So he covers his whole body in it. It’s wasteful, but it works.”

“Well, we’re aiming for better than that,” Kakashi declared, clapping his hands together. “Alright! Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji, you’ll go to the bridge site with Tazuna. Sasuke and Naruto, you’ll do tree climbing training. Naruto, use chakra  _ only  _ on your feet.”

“But-..!”   
“Chakra control exercises are designed to keep you from wasting chakra,” Kakashi said. “Wasting it anyway defeats the purpose.”

“Just go with it, pup,” Kurama said, dropping a hand down to Naruto’s hair. “The sooner you learn this, the sooner  _ I  _ get to teach you something that  _ matters.”  _

Naruto straightened, grinning enthusiastically. “Oh? What are you gonna teach me?”

Kurama extended a hand, and reached over with his other, dragging a sharp nail across the back of it and drawing up a thin line of blood. A second later, he gathered chakra just over the surface, letting it knit itself shut.

“I’m going to show you how to regenerate your health in an emergency,” Kurama said. “It’s something the two of us can do pretty easily, as long as you understand it. Learn the control you need by climbing the trees, and it’ll be easy to learn how to use it to heal yourself.”

A goal in mind, the crowd of shinobi dispersed, all but Sasuke, Naruto, and Kurama leaving to return to the mission. 

Kurama settled down in the grass, propping his head up on a hand to watch.

  
  
  
  


“Natural chakra doesn’t like being assaulted, kid,” Kurama called. “Tone it down.”

Naruto huffed with annoyance at the advice. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to keep it in just my feet!”

“Your feet are a grounding point,” Kurama said. “Pooling chakra there without covering your whole body in it throws off your body’s balance. You have to be good enough at self-control to concentrate.”

Naruto fell out of the tree for perhaps the thousandth time, and rounded on Kurama once he hit the ground. 

“Say, Pop-...”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Can  _ you  _ climb trees like this?”

Kurama glared at his ward. “What the fuck do you mean, can I climb trees?”

“I mean can you climb trees!” Naruto shouted back. “Show me! Let me watch  _ you  _ do it.”

“You watched Sakura and Ino do it earlier, idiot,” Kurama pointed out. “How am I supposed to be a better example?”

“Not just normally watch!” Naruto said, and a moment later he was staring at Kurama through slitted pupils, pointing to his eyes. “Watch like this! So I can see what you’re doing.”   
Kurama hummed, thoughtful, and felt eyes on him off to the side.

He turned just in time to catch Sasuke watching him, weak Sharingan spinning in his irises. 

Kurama distantly recalled Itachi and Shisui celebrating that Sasuke had awakened their clan’s jutsu at some point, even if he couldn’t recall when or how. Now, though, he scowled, because he really didn’t like those eyes, especially when they were aimed toward  _ him.  _

“What?” he demanded. “Are you gonna try and learn by watching what I’m doing, too?”

Sasuke just scowled in response. 

“Save yourselves the trouble,” Kurama told them. “I’m not like you - remember, Naruto? My chakra system is unique. Me gathering my chakra to climb won’t help you two because it’s totally different than how you’ll need to do it.”

“Ooh!” Naruto grinned, excited. “Now I really wanna see! Show me, show me, show me!”

Sasuke didn’t cheer along, but Kurama could tell he was still watching them closely.

“Ugh,” Kurama said. “Fine, whatever.” He stood, stretching, and headed over to the nearest tree.

Pooling chakra wasn’t something he could really  _ do,  _ considering he was entirely made of condensed chakra. The ‘physical’ aspect of his body was about as solid as a shadow clone, just a temporary substance generated by Minato’s experimental seal. 

Still, if the kids wanted a show, Kurama could give them one. 

  
  
  
  


Sasuke frowned as he watched Naruto’s guardian approach the tree, trying to puzzle out what he was seeing.

Kurama’s chakra system was...bleeding, it seemed like. Sasuke could see chakra following him like a cloud, sticking to his very skin. 

As he watched, Kurama stepped out of his shoes, and pressed one foot against the side of a tree, taking the first step onto its side. He stood still against the edge for a moment before stepping back down, taking a few steps back, and charging at it.

As they watched, Kurama straight up the side of the tree, almost to the top, before springing back, cartwheeling his way back down to the ground.

“Wow!” Naruto called. “That’s so cool! You’re so  _ red,  _ Pop!”

Kurama turned to protest the name, and Sasuke took a moment to wonder what the other boy had meant. 

Naruto’s clan was just him and his cousin, Sasuke knew, but he didn’t know what kind of bloodline limit they had. Apparently, though, it came with a unique chakra system, and whatever strange doujutsu Naruto was using. 

Naruto’s chakra system wasn’t like Kurama’s, though. It was perfectly normal, if a little strong. 

Kurama’s seemed like it wasn’t even restrained to a system at all. When he moved, it moved, flowing out from his feet to mingle with the natural chakra held in the ground beneath him. When he touched the tree, his chakra rooted itself there, too. 

Kurama wasn’t using his body’s chakra to cling to the tree’s, but transferring chakra to the tree and using that as a grounding point. Natural chakra was extremely delicate, though, and the intensity of Kurama and Naruto’s Uzumaki blood should have completely overpowered it and destabilized everything. The tree should be  _ exploding  _ where Kurama touched it, but instead, it seemed content to share space.

Kurama’s bloodline made his chakra mimic natural chakra, it seemed. It flowed just as easily through the barriers between him and the earth as it did throughout his own body.

As Sasuke watched, Kurama reached down to drop a hand on Naruto’s forehead, shoving him to make him sit back on the ground. In the brief contact, Sasuke watched as Naruto’s chakra developed an aura of its own, a thin red line crawling around the border of his chakra system and reaching with desperate tendrils toward Kurama’s chakra. 

The bloodline was in Naruto, too, then, but it wasn’t as strong. 

Regardless of the fascinating new revelations, though, Kurama was right. His demonstration didn’t help at all. Not unless Sasuke could figure out a way to complete rework his own chakra system.

That left plan B.

He grimaced at the thought. He hated plan B. 

  
  
  
  


Kurama returned to sitting in the grass, watching in amusement as Naruto immediately tried to mimic how he’d done it, only to scorch the earth where his chakra pooled. 

“You can’t access that kind of chakra yet, kid,” he said. “I’ll show you eventually, but you’re gonna have to do this the hard way for now.”

Naruto pouted, but his response was stopped by the shadow of Sasuke approaching.

Kurama leaned back, fox hearing peaking to hear what the boy was saying. 

“Your issue is just control, right?”

Naruto scowled at Sasuke. “It’s just my feet! I’m plenty good at this, I’m just too strong for it, that’s all!”

Sasuke looked like he was torn between contemplating murder and laughing in Naruto’s face, and Kurama would be angry about it if he weren’t feeling basically the same. 

“But you know how much chakra you need,” Sasuke said. “How much is it?”

Naruto squinted at Sasuke, suspicious. “...I’m not telling.”   
Sasuke bristled, but remarkably held his temper - a feat Kurama hadn’t believed him capable of, given the shit attitude he showed every time he was confronted with an Uzumaki. “Just tell me,” he snapped. “If you tell me what I’m doing wrong, I’ll tell you how to balance your chakra.”

Now  _ there  _ was something interesting. Kurama grinned to himself at the twist, it growing only broader when Naruto tentatively accepted and the two began to converse on it. 

Sasuke  _ hated  _ Kurama, for whatever collection of petty or political reasons, but maybe he wouldn’t extend that to Naruto completely. Maybe those two had a chance to actually get along.

….They were yelling at each other already, though, so maybe not.

  
  
  


By the time Kakashi came back to check in on them, Kurama was by himself in the grass.

“Uh oh,” Kakashi muttered, before jovily asking, “Did you eat them?”

Kurama shot him a look that suggested he was considering eating  _ Kakashi.  _ “Look up, dumbass.”

Kurama waved toward the trees, and Kakashi followed the gesture, looking up to where Naruto and Sasuke were both walking back and forth across the upper branches of the trees, testing their balance as they jumped between limbs. 

“Well, I’ll be damned. They figured it out.”

“Fuck yourself, Hatake,” Kurama said, but it was at maybe half his usual level of venom. “Like they were gonna be the ones to hold their teams back.”

Kakashi carefully didn’t point out that Naruto was literally dead last in his class, by a significant margin. The research he’d done into the remaining Uzumaki clan had revealed that most of Naruto’s issues were in schoolwork, rather than practical aspects. This lined up with rumors he’d heard that Kurama couldn’t read, which he was dying to know the truth of, but smart enough not to ask. 

Still - he had the feeling he would learn a lot about those two, going forward, and he was both wary and tentatively excited. 

At least it’d be interesting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when sasuke is the adult in a situation you know youve fucked up


End file.
